Orphea
by SallyJAvery
Summary: "You could not believe I was more than your echo." A spell to sing the dead to life, when the living are lost. Tomione, post-war, dystopian AU.
1. In their hearts the howling

_**A/N:**_ _This story takes place in an AU set 4 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort has won, and Harry Potter is dead. As you may expect it will be dark, with episodes of violence and torture (both physical and psychological)._

 _Though I have written these characters before, and elements of their characterisation will be similar to other stories and drabbles, the universe in which Orphea takes place is unique and is unrelated to any other of my works._

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J K Rowling. This is a work of transformative fiction written for no profit. The line "You could not believe I was more than your echo" is taken from Margaret Atwood's poem_ 'Orpheus (1)'.

* * *

 _ **.~*Orphea*~.**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter One: In their hearts the howling**_

 _ **Now - June 24th 2002**_

She wasn't sure how long it had been - hours, days, weeks. They were blurred into one by the screaming fire that lit her flesh, that scraped her throat raw and made her nerves spasm and twitch in a demented dance.

" _Crucio_ ," said a dispassionate voice - lightly accented, _Dolohov_ \- and she found herself blackly amused that she could still identify them, still differentiate between her torturers, even as her blood seemed to turn to mercury that boiled in her veins.

Hermione closed her eyes, barely conscious of her teeth grinding together to ride the unending wave of pain as she tried to dream of actual waves, smooth sand and soft sunlight.

She just had to -

" _Last," Draco had said. "You just have to last long enough, and he'll want to get his own look at you."_

 _He had smiled ruefully at her, the expression dragging his scarred face into more of a grimace._

" _He likes a challenge, he likes spirit. Demonstrate that and he'll want to finish you off personally. Take it from me." He had gestured at the thin line that ran from temple to jaw, bisecting his ruined eye, and Hermione had recalled the look of shock on Harry's face, the way that blood had bubbled from his mouth to spill down his chin._

 _As though it was trying to find its way back to his heart._

The pain stopped, and she let her head loll onto her shoulder, hearing the scrape of the door opening, the whisper of robes on stone flags.

"Miss Granger." The voice was one that she had not heard in over four years, but it still retained its power to reach into her, to chill the places that no spell could touch with a single, icy word. "Hermione, if I might be so bold –"

 _You may not_ , she wanted to say, and her hands curled into fists where they were bound to the seat of the chair, her fingertips adhering to the half-dried blood where her nails had cut crescent moons into her palms.

"- I must admit," he continued, and his voice was saccharine with amusement, "I'm surprised you've lasted so long."

Finally, she opened her eyes, seeing the unnatural gleam of his irises in the half-dark, and forced herself to smile, knowing that her teeth would be red where she'd bitten her tongue. She cleared her throat and spat blood onto the floor at his feet.

"Riddle," she rasped, "So good of you to take the time."

He twitched slightly at the name, a barely perceptible flicker of movement in his serpentine face, but enough for her to count it as a triumph.

"I am…unused…to being addressed that way," he said eventually, his voice emerging from between clenched teeth. "There are very few who remember that name."

Hermione laughed, a dry croak of sound that quickly devolved into a racking cough. _Dank cellars are murder on the lungs_ , she thought, _even if it is the dank cellar of Malfoy Manor_. "You think Harry and Dumbledore were the only ones who knew who you really are?"

The air of the room shifted, took on a thrumming note of tension as she felt his anger rise, magic tautening around her. Voldemort lifted one hand and Hermione caught the glimmer of light on the knife – the knife that had killed Harry, killed Neville, Lavender, Ernie, Padma; taken Draco's eye, Parvati's hand; shorn the bonds of sisters, of friends, of children and parents.

Had carved a word into the flesh of her forearm, into the substance of her soul.

"Mudblood filth," he hissed now, "You think a pathetic Muggle name is who I really am?" The blade flashed dangerously in the air, and Hermione held her breath. _Just a little more, just a little closer_.

"I was the one who figured it out, you know," she said, deliberately goading. "Your horcruxes, the Hallows, after Dumbledore died. You were in Harry's head, but I got inside yours."

Those scarlet eyes narrowed, his lipless mouth drawing itself into a derisive sneer. "You seem to think a great deal of yourself, Hermione Granger." He paused, tipping his head to one side, like a viper considering its prey. "But your cleverness was not enough to save your precious Harry Potter, and it will not be enough to save you."

 _It wasn't_ , Hermione silently agreed, and the grief that she carried in her heart twisted - an invisible scar, Harry etched indelibly upon her. But it was an old wound, an old pain, and she had learned to bear it.

"Won't it?" she asked, forcing mockery into her voice. _Come on_ , she thought. _Come on_.

The sneer on his face deepened, and he leaned closer, staring into her eyes. "You think you are a match for me? You are an insect to be crushed, you and your pathetic rebellion, and I find that my patience wears thin."

 _Do it_. Her heart leaped into her throat, breath ragged. _Do it, come on, come on_.

" _Legilimens_ ," Voldemort breathed, a silken whisper that belied the terrible violence of the intrusion as he crashed into her mind. Hermione couldn't help her gasp: he was so much more brutal, so much crueller than the worst that Draco had subjected her to in months of practice, and it was a struggle to focus, to draw the shattered pieces of herself together.

With an effort of will she ignored the claws of Voldemort's spell in her thoughts, and threw herself into the taste of copper blood on her tongue; on the burn of ropes on her wrists; imagining walls and doors and mirrors - reflecting - reflecting -

 _Surprise – and the girl's ashen face – and anger_ – and Hermione snatched at the anger and used it as a wedge to drive her way further in, further and further – _fury – that she would dare –_ and she delved deeper, following the thread of disgust back, back and there – _there_ –

 _The blunt wedge of a mountain like an axe blade, water a milky sky-blue, useless, useless, his wand rising, fury coursing through him, the curse forming on his lips_ – and she saw the page that he had torn from the book, read the words, and then he threw her out with such force that her head snapped back, cracking against the wall with a dizzying thud.

"You _dare_ ," Voldemort choked, both hands raised now, wand and knife ready, and behind him she saw Dolohov starting forward from where he had been leaning against the wall – too late, because Hermione had already felt with her tongue for the chunk of metal embedded in her back tooth, had already thought _Portus_.

"I dare," she smiled, blue light spilling from her mouth as she felt the familiar, sickening yank behind her navel and Voldemort's howl of rage was lost as she spun through space.

* * *

 _ **Then - 31st October 2001**_

Hermione woke with her heart in her mouth, gasping hot clouds of breath into the frigid air. The nightmares were back, just as she'd had in the first few months at the castle, and clearly she'd been sleepwalking again because one glimpse of her surroundings in the silvery moonlight told her that she was up in the top of the shattered eyrie that had formerly been Ravenclaw Tower; ruined stone and jagged timbers jutting toward the dark sky like a smoke-blackened finger.

Draco had made the case for their return not long after he and Daphne had found them, camped in the ruins of what had once been Ottery St Catchpole.

Ron had been all for killing the pair of them on sight, but Hermione had seen the desperation in Daphne's eyes, the way that Draco sagged against her, the left side of his face hidden behind hasty bandaging, and had stepped forward.

" _If we can find you here then so can they," Draco had said flatly a month later, when the wound had closed and he could sit unaided. He had winced as he pushed himself upright, and Daphne gave the barest flinch beside him but did not move to help._

" _And where the fuck do you think we should go?" Ron had challenged him, anger burning bright spots of colour into his cheeks._

" _Hogwarts." Draco had said, "Too pitiful for the Death Eaters to even suspect that you would colonise a burnt-out ruin."_

 _Daphne had sat beside him, quiet and pale, but her eyes had lifted once more to meet Hermione's, and she had seen nothing but truth in the other girl's deep blue stare. If it was a trap, then it was well-constructed._

That had been two years ago; two years since they had come creeping back to the burnt-out shell of the school that had been home to all of them at one time or another. Fiendfyre had torn through Hogwarts, rendering much of the structure unstable, but in the parts that were left they had built themselves a sanctuary of sorts - behind layers of _notice-me-not_ and repelling charms specifically tailored to the mark that crawled its way across Draco's forearm.

" _A mistake," he'd said as they'd sat, the pair of them on watch on one of the early nights when they had all camped together in the Great Hall, beneath the shelter of a warming charm. Hermione was there more to watch Draco, and they both knew it, but that didn't mean that she couldn't ask him the questions that had nagged at her since she'd first cut away his sweat-soaked shirt and seen the stark lines of the Mark against his flesh._

" _He should have included a location spell, but I think he was arrogant enough to think that he wouldn't need to."_

 _He ran a finger along the scar on his cheek, a gesture that would soon become a habit when he was thinking, and then looked up at her, one eye a crisp winter-grey, the other clouded with white._

" _I'll know where he is though," he said softly, "when he calls."_

Now, years later, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself, screwing her eyes shut as she leaned against the icy wall and attempted to hold onto the details of the dream that had brought her to the other side of the building from that in which they had built their haven. It was useless to try, she knew - the memories were like water cupped between her hands, running from her, as they always did, as _he_ always had - purpose and prophecy leading her best friend where she could not follow.

 _Harry_. She felt her lips move, forming his name, and knew that no matter what the details the broad strokes of the dream would be the same: the day that he'd died, the day that the world was lost to the thrust of a cursed blade, to the high, cruel laugh of Voldemort's triumph.

 _Hermione had followed him into the Forest, because of course she had. She'd told him before that she'd follow him to the ends of the earth, and he might have an invisibility cloak but she wasn't stupid, so as soon as she'd spotted the footprints in the morning dew she had known._

 _She had seen, from where she hid herself behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, how Voldemort had raised his wand and then paused, considering. "I think I'd like to be sure," he had said, voice soft with menace as he reached out a hand to Bellatrix, who drew the dagger from her belt to place it reverently on his palm._

 _The movement had been quick, and precise, Voldemort lunging forward to bury the knife to its hilt in Harry's chest. She had seen Harry look down, almost disbelieving, and then his eyes had raised, his green gaze turned to her as though he had known all along that she was there, and Hermione looked on in horror as blood bubbled from his mouth to run down his chin, waiting until Harry's eyes had rolled upwards and he started to fall before she had turned to run back to the castle, to tell them that it was over; that they'd lost; that they had to get out._

And then afterward the twist of the corridors, the castle that they had known as children slipping into ruin as she chased him through it, always just a few steps behind. The flick of his robes around the next corner; the bounce of cold light on his dark hair, on his bright, quick smile.

Nightmare or dream? Better the ghost of his smile, perhaps, than the clear memory of the final, agonised look that he had given her at the very end, when she had seen in his eyes the knowledge that he had failed.

But she was awake now, the fact of his death no nightmare, and Hermione heard herself give a sharp little sob, felt tears sting her frozen skin. Harry had been talking to her in the dream, words tossed gaily over his shoulder, but the echo of his voice was fading and she realised that she could no longer remember the sound of it, let alone the words that he had said to her.

She scrubbed her hand across her face, blinked her eyes open to look out over the rugged grounds. The moon's face was a bright, pure silver, and the overgrown lawns were bathed in the bright light. _Full moon on Halloween_ , she recalled an old Astronomy lesson. _Ascend and fall_.

To dream of Harry on such a night, under such a light, sent a shiver crawling beneath her skin.

 _Thy dead men shall live_ , she remembered suddenly, the soft words of her Sunday School teacher echoing through fifteen years, startling in their clarity when she couldn't remember Harry's voice.

 _If only_ , she thought. If only the dead could rise. One night could be enough. Enough to -

She slid down against the wall, her hand lifting to cover her mouth, to stifle the cry that rose to her lips. Her feet shuffled on the icy floor, catching, as she dropped downwards, on a scrap of parchment.

Parchment still littered the ruin of the castle, and every highland storm seemed to disturb a new hiding place so that pieces of creamy paper would whirl in the wind, catching the brightness of lightning like strange birds.

But this night was still, the moon shining impassively, not a wisp of cloud to cover it, and Hermione reached out and snatched the scrap that fluttered as though caught in a breeze.

As though held out to her by ghostly fingers.

Full moon on Halloween, when the veil was at its thinnest, when the dead rose to walk among the living and -

She smoothed the parchment out under the moonlight, saw the dark scratch of ink upon it.

Two words, written in her own handwriting:

 _I'm waiting._

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _Another dreamscape mystery beckons, and I hope you'll be along for the ride. Endless thanks to my light and joy, best friend, muse, and alpha-reader_ _ **Olivie Blake**_ _\- the idea behind this came from her beautiful brain, but she was generous enough to let me run with it._

 _I won't be giving further trigger warnings but as I intimated at the beginning there will be violence, there will be trauma, there will be blood, and it won't be pretty._

 _To be updated weekly._


	2. Her dream was my domain

_**Chapter Two: Her dream was my domain**_

* * *

 _ **Then - 19th November 2001**_

Hermione had tried to hide what was happening, going so far as to dose herself with Dreamless Sleep, locking the door from the outside and rolling her wand out of reach under the jamb, but she still found herself waking that morning in the library, her cheek pressed against the pages of a book and another scrap of parchment clenched between her fingers.

 _Hermione_ , it said in her own handwriting, the same as all the others, except this time the word was repeated over and over, covering the paper entirely, and when Hermione held it up, staring at it in horror, she could see that the parchment was torn in places, as though her quill had ripped through the paper.

As though the voice of her madness, of whatever it was that had called her from her bed on Halloween, was growing impatient, ever more insistent.

She closed her eyes and let a vicious shudder tear through her as she resolved to place the parchment with the other notes that formed a growing pile in the drawer beside her bed in Dumbledore's former office. The notes that said _I'm waiting_ , or _Come and find me_ , or _Where are you -_

Or, worst of all, _Please_.

The dreams themselves had gone from confused memories, impossible to hold on to, to bursts of almost bewildering clarity: the dazzle of light in late autumn as she rounded the corner of the stairs up to the Owlery; the sound of the library silent but for the scratch of quills in exam term; the coolness of the stone walls in the dungeons as she approached the Potions classroom.

And everywhere, _everywhere,_ the hint of a presence just ahead or just behind - the whisper of a spell fading on the air, the gentle stirring of breath on her neck. She would wake, every time now, with Harry's name on her lips, with another message waiting in the palm of her hand.

Hermione crumpled the parchment covered in her name into a ball, and made to push herself away from the desk at which she was sat. Her hand fell on the book that her head had been resting on, her eyes catching on the pages open in front of her, and it took all of her ragged energy not to scream.

It was Parvati who found her, seemingly hours later, sat trembling in the chair with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, unable to move her gaze from the book.

"Hermione?" the other girl whispered, her blue-black hair reminding Hermione, just for a moment, of the way that Harry's shone when he ran ahead of her through her nightmares. Parvati's eyes widened when she looked down at the open book, at the mess of ink across it, and Hermione followed the movement of sunlight on metal as Patvati raised her shining hand to her mouth. "What on earth is going on?"

* * *

 _ **Before - 3rd August 1998**_

 _Dean had come running back to the camp in the New Forest two days before, breathless and ashen-faced, holding a ragged copy of the Prophet. The three girls' faces were splashed across the front page, wide-eyed with terror and wincing in pain as they tried to wrench themselves away from the hands that held them tightly in place for the mugshots._

 _ **TRAITORS CAUGHT TRYING TO EVADE MINISTRY!**_ _the headline screamed, and Hermione had looked up, disbelieving, as she read the accompanying article._

" _They were caught in Godric's Hollow," she'd said, glancing from one worried face to another in their small group. "Why the hell would they go there?"_

 _Neville had shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "Maybe they thought they might find some of the rest of us there?"_

 _Hermione had sighed deeply, realising the truth of what Neville said, though she still couldn't believe the girls had been stupid enough to go somewhere so obvious. The survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts had scattered to the winds trying to evade the squads of Snatchers that roamed the country trying to round them up, and though their little group had heard rumours of people being caught, being tortured and executed, this was the first evidence that they had seen to back it up._

"' _The Patil twins and Brown are known blood-traitors, with Brown's blood status in question after she was mauled by a werewolf during the Battle of Hogwarts,'" Hermione read on aloud, before she had paused to look up at Ron. "I didn't know that she'd -"_

 _He'd shaken his head, his expression grim. "Me neither."_

 _Hermione had scanned the rest of the page quickly, feeling her heart sink in her chest. "They're due to be executed in two days' time," she'd said quietly. "At the new - the new Tyburn Tree in Hyde Park."_

" _For fuck's sake," Ginny had sworn, turning away._

" _He's making an example of them," Hermione had said quietly. "Something this public, this showy - he wants it to be a warning."_

" _So what are we going to do?" Justin Finch-Fletchley had asked, his earnest faced creased with anxiety, and for a moment Hermione had been tempted to laugh, to ask what he thought he was talking about because what_ could _they do - what could they possibly do when Voldemort had won, when everything had gone to shit - when the world was all -_

 _And Neville had caught her eye, and she had let out her breath in a deep sigh. "We're going to try and rescue them."_

 _Now, she stood with Ron by the fence at the edge of Hyde Park. They could see the three girls about two hundred metres away, lined up on the scaffold that had been erected in the corner of the busy park, but whose presence attracted no attention from the muggles who walked and cycled past, unaware of the horror in their midst._

 _Hermione was too far away to tell the twins apart, though she could see the puckered scarring on the side of Lavender's neck revealed as her curls blew freely in the wind. All three were dressed in dark grey robes, and though the morning was already growing warm Hermione couldn't help the shiver that danced across her skin as she watched them._

 _She chanced a look at Ron where he stood beside her. In his polyjuiced form his face was harder to read than usual, but the middle-aged businessman's sagging jaw was clenched tight, his red-knuckled hands balled into fists at his sides._

 _For a moment Hermione toyed with the idea of taking his hand in her own, but she dismissed it. It would probably look odd, anyway, for the teenage girl whose appearance she had taken on to be holding hands with a man old enough to be her father._

 _They'd decided it would be easier to get close if they looked liked muggles - edging their way right up to the edge of the repelling charms, and then fixing their gazes obliquely on the scene of Voldemort's sickening theatre._

 _A not-inconsiderable crowd of witches and wizards had gathered to watch the executions, and Hermione felt the sting of helpless fury as she recognised faces here and there. Michael Corner, frowning at the ground, his mouth held in an unhappy line; Zacharias Smith, his head tilted so that half of his sneering face was visible as he stared at the three girls lined up before him. And over there, Malfoy's silver-blond, his face angled slightly away, his lips pursed as though in distaste. Astoria Greengrass hung on his arm, her eyes fixed eagerly on the spectacle._

 _Feeling Ron tense beside her, Hermione looked back at the stage to see that Voldemort himself had stepped out, followed as ever by Bellatrix Lestrange._

 _Voldemort's black hood was thrown back to reveal his smooth, pale head and his face was lit with a smile that even at this distance made Hermione feel sick to her stomach. From where she and Ron stood outside the_ Muffliato _they couldn't hear what Voldemort said, but they saw when he raised a hand, showing the cursed knife off to the crowd. Hermione's blood ran cold as she remembered the glint of light on it, the way that he had plunged it into Harry's chest._

" _No!" she said, clutching Ron's arm and not caring for how it looked. "No - he can't - this isn't how -"_

" _That sick bastard," Ron growled, and without another word he had pulled his wand from inside his jacket and sent the red sparks of the signal into the sky. Almost instantly there was an explosion from the right-hand side of the stage, where Seamus had planted a bomb as he snuck past earlier on, and the crowd erupted into chaos. Ron took off at a run towards the scaffold, and Hermione, after a moment's indecision, chased after him._

 _The moment she crossed the warding the shouts and screams of the crowd became deafening, and she had to push and fight to get towards the front. Ahead of her she could see Ron cursing bodies out of his way with grim determination, and Hermione started to do the same, hoping against hope that Neville had been able to make it to the scaffold under the invisibility cloak, that Dean and Seamus had managed to get away before their polyjuice wore off._

 _She heard a shout to her right, saw Justin running towards her, a trickle of red on his forehead, and opened her mouth to yell a warning, only it was too late, as Yaxley's curse had found its mark and Justin crumpled in a flash of green._

 _Hermione bit down on her cry, and instead focussed on pushing her way towards the scaffold, where she could see Voldemort stood stock-still, staring into the crowd with narrowed eyes. Beside him Bellatrix had her wand out and was throwing curses seemingly at random into the melee. Hermione had to leap aside to dodge one, and as she did so she heard a little shriek, and raised her eyes to the stage._

 _Parvati appeared to be frozen in the motion of falling backwards - no, she was being pulled backwards by someone invisible, and Hermione watched as Voldemort's head whipped towards the girl, towards Neville, invisible behind her. And Voldemort was lifting his wand and opening his mouth and -_

" _Stupefy!" Ron yelled, having clambered onto the stage. His spell went wide of its mark, managing to hit Bellatrix, but Voldemort just laughed, grabbing Lavender and Padma by their arms and yanking both towards him._

 _Over the noise of the crowd Hermione didn't hear Voldemort speak, but she saw Ron's snarl, saw Voldemort's arm move, quick, snake-like, and then blood was pouring down Lavender's front as her throat opened, a river of red staining the front of her robes._

" _NO!" Parvati was screaming, and then she had broken away from Neville, the invisibility cloak half-falling as she did so._

 _Hermione saw Neville trip, sent a shield charm flying at him to block the curse that Travers aimed, and meanwhile Parvati had grabbed Padma's hand and was trying to pull her from Voldemort's grasp - and Voldemort had dropped Lavender's lifeless form as Ron gave a shout of rage and surged forward, wrapping an arm around Parvati's waist, and Padma was screaming too, was fighting desperately to free herself from Voldemort's grasp -_

 _\- and Hermione tried to aim her wand at Voldemort but she was jostled by someone in the crowd -_

 _\- and she heard a terrible wail - heard Ron yell "I've got her, I've got her, go!" -_

 _\- and she heard the sharp cracks of his and Neville's disapparitions before she looked up at the scaffold, just in time to see Voldemort slash the knife across Padma's throat, viciously slicing through hair and skin and sinew - and the blood - the blood was everywhere - and Padma's grip relaxed as she went limp -_

 _Hermione felt bile rising in her throat: the image of Parvati's severed hand falling from Padma's searing itself onto her memory as she disapparated._

* * *

 _ **Then - 19th November 2001**_

"We knew something was wrong," Parvati said, worrying at the end of her braid, one hand smooth bronze skin, the other just smooth bronze, chased with an intricate, henna-like design of feathers and claws. "You've looked awful for nearly a month."

Hermione couldn't deny it - she knew that the shadows beneath her eyes were almost bruise-like, that the skin of her hands was raw where she scrubbed ink from them every morning. Instead she just nodded, dropping her head into her hands to avoid looking at the notes that were spread across the desk in the old headmaster's office.

To avoid looking at any of the others who had gathered in her bedroom to pore over the evidence that she was losing her mind.

"What do all these mean, Granger?" Draco asked, curiosity evident in his usually bored voice as he sifted through three weeks' worth of nocturnal messages.

"I don't know," Hermione whispered, not bothering to raise her head. She didn't want to see the concern on their faces, didn't want to have to look at the book open in the middle of the desk. Ron shifted next to her, placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed in what Hermione thought was probably supposed to be a reassuring manner.

"You said you've been dreaming about Harry..." he said, trailing off uncertainly, and obviously expecting Hermione to elaborate further. She sighed, and finally lifted her head to stare over her fingertips at the others.

Ron, Parvati, Draco, Daphne. Luna, Ginny and Anthony. _All that's left_ , Hermione thought bleakly, before her gaze fell back onto the parchment, onto the book.

She hadn't even known that there was a Bible _in_ the library, and Hermione felt a moment of the old frustration at the discovery of a gap in her knowledge, dismissing it quickly as she read the circled words again.

 _Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed_ , here a dark scribble across a few words, and then: _for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed._

Another shudder tore its way across Hermione's skin, and she felt goosebumps rise across the back of her neck and all the way down her arms. Her eyes moved across the rest of the page, across her name spelled over and over - _Hermione Hermione Hermione_ \- and she wanted to retch, wanted to curl up and pull a pillow over her head and deny that this, whatever it was, was happening, but she couldn't, because sleeping - when she _slept_ -

"I dream of the day he died," she said quietly. "I dream of the way that he looked at me, and then I dream that I'm chasing him, or maybe being chased, I'm not sure, through Hogwarts, and I know that he says something but I can never quite hear, or remember, once I wake up."

There was a long moment while no one spoke, and then Anthony said, his voice quiet, "And this started on Halloween?"

Hermione nodded miserably at him, "At the full moon."

The pause this time was more tense, the whole group seeming to consider the implications of Hermione's words, before Draco cleared his throat. "You say that Potter looked at you," he said slowly, rubbing his scar as he met Hermione's gaze. "That he was looking at you as he died."

"Yes," Hermione said, "But I don't see what that has to do with -"

"Granger," Draco said, cutting her off. "How much do you know about Legilimency?"

* * *

 _ **Now - June 24th 2002**_

She was whirling - whirling through space - untethered and unmoored and still reeling from the pain, the terrible horror of having Voldemort's mind probing her own as she felt herself yanked down and down and -

Hermione crashed into water, tried to take a breath but there was no air, and she panicked, thrashing arms and legs in the cold, unsure of which way was up, which way meant _surface_ , and _air_ , and _light_ , and she could feel herself fading, feel herself -

Strong arms closed around her, legs kicked behind her back, and then her head broke free of the water and she was gulping greedily at the freshness of the morning, her heart hammering in her chest, and Ron was asking "Are you ok? Are you ok?" over and over, and she could only nod, couldn't even gasp an answer as she let Ron pull her with him as he swam to the shore of the lake where Parvati waited.

Ron pushed Hermione forward and then Parvati's hands went under her arms, dragging her out of the water and onto the muddy bank. Next to her Ron hauled himself out, flopping onto his back and closing his eyes as he turned his face up towards the clear expanse of blue sky.

Hermione coughed, heaving the water from her lungs as she heard shouts, and running feet approaching. She dug her fingers into the soft mud and sobbed with relief that it had worked - _it had worked_.

"Did it work?" Draco yelled breathlessly as he came skidding to a halt by the lakeside, and Hermione raised her head to look at him, to nod weakly and let her mouth shape itself into the ghost of a smile.

"Thank fucking Mer-" the blond wizard started to say, but he was interrupted as Luna arrived, closely followed by Theo, who strode forward to kneel by Hermione, pulling her up by her shoulders.

"Are you alright?" he asked abruptly, and Hermione sighed, squeezing his wrists gently.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just misjudged it a little."

"When you weren't there when I arrived," Theo said, "When you - I thought he might have, that I'd timed it wrong, or that you'd -"

"I'm fine," Hermione repeated, shoving him away. "Stop fussing, for Godric's sake."

Theo blew out a sigh as he stepped back, running a hand through his hair as Luna leaned into his side. When Hermione met her grey gaze Luna smiled. "So?" she asked simply.

Hermione blinked, thinking of the blunt shape of the mountains, the pink-toned sky, blue water, and the words that she had seen inside Voldemort's mind.

 _\- stories are told of The Well of Souls, believed by many to be nothing more than legend, though its location has been posited by some wizarding historians as being in Skaftafell, on the island of Iceland -_

"Yes," she nodded, sitting back on her heels and feeling the absurd desire to laugh. _It had worked,_ and _she had escaped_ and _she was alive alive alive._ But all that she said before she collapsed, exhausted, onto the grass was, "I know where we need to go."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Because time jumps around a bit in this story, different characters will appear at different points - it might be a little confusing right now but I promise all will be explained! The Bible passage is from 1 Corinthians 15:51-2 (KJV)_


	3. The heart's dark crossroads

**Chapter Three: The heart's dark crossroads**

* * *

 _ **Then - November 27th 2001**_

"They need to be tighter," Hermione said, tugging experimentally at the ropes that bound her to the bed.

"If we do them much tighter you'll lose circulation in your arms," Daphne remarked as she chewed on her lip, tapping her wand against her collarbone and frowning. "I still don't see how -"

"We need to know," Hermione sighed. "You need to see what I - what happens when I have the dreams, and nothing else has been able to hold me."

"Ropes though," Ron said, his voice uneasy. "I still think it's all a little -"

"It serves a purpose," Hermione said sharply, fighting the urge to roll her eyes as Draco snickered from where he was securing her other wrist.

"How unsurprising to find that your tastes run to the quotidian, Weasley," he sneered, as he secured the knot holding Hermione's right arm to the bed frame.

In contrast to their school years, Draco's words held little malice, and rather than rise to the provocation Ron simply murmured "Fuck off, Malfoy," as he tightened the ropes around Hermione's left wrist.

" _How much do you know about Legilimency?" Draco had asked, and Hermione had stared wordlessly at him, her mind racing with the possibilities of it. The way that Harry looked at her as the knife was pulled from his chest, as his magic welled and poured from him to seal Voldemort's victory. Could he have been -_

" _He was trying to tell me something, you think?" she asked Draco, scarcely daring to believe it, even as her blood started to roar in her ears._

" _Well," the blond wizard shrugged. "It would be you that he'd tell, wouldn't it?"_

 _Hermione had glanced around the room, had seen Ron's gaze skitter away from her - the old jealousy still there in spite of everything, still with its power to wound them both. And if Harry could haunt them like that, then why couldn't he reach into her dreams? she wondered, why couldn't he -_

" _But why now?" Ginny asked, direct as ever, her arms folded as she frowned sceptically at Draco, and Hermione felt a rush of guilt as she took in Ginny's stony expression, felt the need to say something, to protest that she and Harry had never, that they_ would _never, because it just hadn't been that way._

 _Had it?_

 _Before she could say anything, however, another voice spoke up. "The full moon," Luna said, the words quiet, airy, but still shocking in contrast to her usual silence. When no one interrupted her she went on, staring dreamily out of the window. "If Harry had unfinished business when he died -"_

" _Understatement of the century," Draco muttered, but quieted as Daphne elbowed him in the ribs._

" _\- then this would be the first time that the Veil was thin enough for him to reach across." Luna murmured._

 _There was a beat of silence while everyone waited to see if she would continue speaking, but she closed her eyes and sat back in her chair as though exhausted, and it was Anthony - Anthony, who had survived for years alone, whose wits were sharp but whose logic was sharper - who looked at Hermione, quirked a brow, and said, "Well, I think we should listen to what he has to say."_

Every night this week they had tried to make sense of Hermione's night-time wanderings, of the messages that she would scribble on pieces of parchment, the books that she would pull from the remaining shelves in the Library to circle passages and tear out pages, to her waking bibliophilic horror.

It had become clear fairly quickly that there was a problem with their plans, as it seemed that whatever it was that was impelling Hermione's sleeping behaviour would wait out the wakefulness of any observer. When, two nights before, Ron and Parvati had taken Wideye Potion and sat up to keep watch, Daphne had found them both stunned and Hermione gone when morning broke over the castle.

So they had had to reconsider.

The use of _Incarcerous_ spells last night had proved ineffective. Hermione had woken up deep in the dungeons, in the old Slytherin Common Room, the traces of messages written in the condensation on the huge glass windows glinting in the greenish sunlight that filtered through the lake waters.

 _Hermione Hermione Hermione._

 _Please._

It was that plaintive note, the echo of desperation that settled itself in her bones, deeper than the chill of the dungeons, that had decided her. The ropes were her idea, and she had been surprised when Anthony and Draco, usually wary of one another, agreed readily that it was a good plan.

"We can't hold you here by magic; not by magic that we want to try, anyway," Anthony had said, his eyes sliding to Draco's, who had shaken his head slightly. Hermione knew that there were curses and jinxes that could be used to hold her in place, that if the Muggle ropes didn't work this would be what they tried next, but she couldn't deny the prickle of fear that had danced its way down her spine at the thought of having to perform Dark Magic.

Now, Hermione flexed her arms, satisfied that she couldn't lift her wrists away from the wooden bedframe. "OK," she said. "Ready as I'll ever be." She closed her eyes as Ginny tipped the Dreamless Sleep potion to her lips, thinking only of his face, of his smile and his green eyes and his voice and his steely determination.

 _Harry Harry Harry._

 _Please, Harry._

Hermione opened her eyes to the light of early dawn, pale and insipid. To a ring of ashen faces, their expressions tense and worried. To aching arms and burning wrists where she had clearly strained against the ropes that bound her.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?"

She had been so close to him this time, almost close enough to touch, to reach out a hand and grab his arm, cup his cheek. She'd called his name, she knew, could feel her throat was raw with it. Could feel the stinging tightness of dried tears on her cheeks.

"Riddle," Ginny said, laying a trembling hand on Hermione's arm. "You kept yelling for Harry and then you - you -"

"You stopped," Ron continued, "And we thought that was it, except that then you started trying to scratch something into the bedframe and you were saying _his_ \- You-Know-Who's name -"

Hermione felt the familiar, sickening rush of anger at the continued taboo on his name. _Voldemort,_ she wanted to spit. _Murderer. Madman._ But her tongue would lock before she could even think to say it; they had placed themselves under a tightly-wrought _Fidelius_ charm long ago to prevent accidental slips.

" _Death to any he that utters them," Hermione had muttered grimly once she had cast the spell. Luna had given her one of her rare, direct looks, and smiled oddly as the golden tendrils of the charm faded over her pale hair_.

"I can't have," she frowned, "The _Fidelius -"_

"You said 'Riddle'," Draco said flatly. "'Riddle remembers.'" He was watching her with an intent look on his face, and Hermione felt a sudden rush of understanding for the greenish tinge that Ginny's skin had taken on, for the particular horror that the name held for her.

"Riddle remembers," Hermione repeated softly, trying to catch hold of the errant threads of the dream, recalling, suddenly, Harry's mouth against her ear, his soft words.

 _Find me_ , he'd said, and she'd trembled at the quietness of his voice, barely a whisper but enough to send a shiver of - of _something_ through her - but it was Harry, Harry whom she had loved like a brother, and never like - like -

She felt a flush climbing her neck as the words crept back into her mind. _Riddle knows where_. He'd been behind her, and she had turned to try and catch a glimpse, but he had just laughed, always behind her, and then his lips had moved against her hair, the ghost of a hand gliding down her arm. _Riddle remembers. Find me._

"I think," Hermione swallowed, horror and fear and the memory of something terribly close to desire mingling to snatch her words for a moment. "I think that You-Know-Who has the answers."

No one said anything for what seemed, to Hermione, an interminable length of time, and then incredibly, maybe inevitably, Draco started to laugh.

* * *

 _ **Before - 16th September 1999**_

" _Someone's triggered the wards," Neville said breathlessly, his head poking up through the trapdoor into the attic of The Burrow, where they had set up a makeshift potions lab. Hermione glanced up to see her own shock reflected on Ginny's face, and then scrambled to follow Neville down the ladder, through the fire-ravaged structure that remained standing due to a combination of magic and what seemed to be simple obstinacy on the part of the house, to the yard, where the others were gathering, eyes and wands trained on the bend in the road._

 _It had been six weeks, long enough for them to think that they were safe, to regroup at the pre-agreed point, the only one that Luna wouldn't be able to give up. Neville and Ron had laid the wards, drawing on the melange of old bloodlines that flowed through them, keying the spells to their own magic._

 _Hermione chanced a look at Ron, taking in his tight jaw and the tension that made his extended wand-arm shake. A year ago she would have laid a hand on his arm, would have pressed her lips to his cheek, but it hadn't worked then, and it wouldn't work now. There was a chasm of grief between them, and filling it with something...else…wasn't the answer._

 _Besides, he had lost far more than just Harry. They all had. And try as Hermione might she could not turn her mind from the flight from The Burrow the winter before - of Arthur and George cut down by Bellatrix in the front yard. Of Molly's shout of anguish, of her Killing Curse hitting the Lestrange witch. Of Ron's howl and Ginny's scream as Molly was engulfed in the Fiendfyre that spewed from Voldemort's wand and they were ripped away as the others apparated them out._

 _Hermione shuddered, shaking her head to force the memory away, holding her own wand out and straining her eyes to catch movement coming round the corner._

 _When a figure finally appeared she squinted, trying to make sense of the stumbling, lop-sided shape._

" _Who's there?!" Neville shouted. "Show your face!"_

 _The figure seemed to stagger, then collapse on one side, before throwing back the hood of its cloak to reveal -_

" _You fucking bastard, Malfoy!" Ron surged forward, his wand lifting, and Hermione felt the magic gathering, glanced back to see the desperate set of Daphne's face, the way that Draco sagged next to her, his face covered in blood, the way that Luna fell away from Daphne's other arm as the Slytherin girl raised her empty hand, opening her mouth -_

" _No!" Hermione yelled, leaping forward to pull at Ron's arm, so that the curse flew off to the side, exploding harmlessly against a tree._

" _What the fuck, Hermione?" Ginny shouted, her own wand raised and ready to cast._

" _They've got Luna," Hermione called over her shoulder as she set off at a run down the road. "And Malfoy's hurt."_

" _It could be a trap," Neville said quietly as he jogged beside her._

" _It could," Hermione nodded. But her eyes were on Daphne's and all she could see in the other girl's face was exhausted relief._

" _Please," Daphne whispered, as Hermione and Neville reached them. "Please, I brought her back to you but you have to - you have to -"_

 _Hermione couldn't stifle her gasp as Daphne lifted the bloodied bandages away from Draco's face to reveal the vicious slash that cut across his eye. "He's been beaten too," Daphne sobbed. "I think his arm's broken, and some ribs, he was bleeding -"_

" _Theo," Luna whispered, her eyelids fluttering where Neville had pulled her to a sitting position, and Hermione looked back up to Daphne._

" _Nott's with you as well?" she asked._

" _No," Daphne whimpered. "No, he, he got us out, he covered - triggered the wards and made it look like - he had to stay, to make it look real, to cover for us."_

" _Why?" Hermione whispered, unable to help herself as she palpated Draco's chest, moving her fingers to his abdomen and eliciting a scream of pain._

" _Draco refused to kill her," Daphne said. "He refused, and he - the Dark Lord - he was going to kill him, and kill Lovegood, and I couldn't let him - Theo couldn't let him -"_

" _Shit," Hermione said, as her tapping fingers found a hard lump and Draco promptly retched blood. "We need to get him inside."_

" _Over my dead fucking body," Ron growled from behind her, and Hermione whipped round to face him._

" _If you want," she said evenly, "but I think we've all seen enough dead bodies for now."_

 _Ron held her gaze for a moment, and she saw him consider arguing before he sighed, his shoulders drooping with resignation. "Your funeral," he said. "Though Godric knows we've seen enough of those too."_

* * *

 _ **Now - June 24th 2002**_

"This looks bad," Ginny murmured, as she dabbed at the blood that still wept from Hermione's wrists.

"Cursed manacles," Hermione replied, wincing as Ginny sprinkled the bruised and torn flesh with another liberal application of Dittany.

"I'm sorry," Theo said with a grimace. "I could have removed the spell if I'd been there earlier but -"

"It was better that you didn't," Hermione tried to smile reassuringly at him, but ruined the effect by hissing with pain as Ginny moved her attention to the peppering of small burns that crawled their way up the side of her neck. "We had a plan and we stuck to it, and I'm fine."

"Forgive me if it seems I'm stating the obvious, Granger," Draco said, crossing his arms and eyeing her from where he stood next to Theo, "But you don't exactly _look_ fine."

"She looks better than you, Draco," Ginny said blithely, though Hermione was close enough to see her friend hold her breath, waiting for Draco's reaction to the tease.

"She wishes," came his smirking reply, and Ginny's shoulders relaxed as she shot Hermione a small smile. Though Draco maintained that he was just glad to be alive, it had been a long time before he had been able to be good-humoured about the scar, and sometimes the others could play a little _too_ fast and loose with his patience.

"Look, I'm sorry if you lot want to snark at each other all day," Ron grumbled, "But I for one would quite like to know where the world's most ridiculous plan has got us?"

"You got the pleasure of my company on a permanent basis, Weasley," Theo grinned, but he, along with the rest of the small band that had gathered in the former DADA classroom, turned his eyes to Hermione expectantly.

She sighed, patted Ginny's hand to stop her fussing, and then straightened her spine as she looked from face to face.

"I was right," she said quietly. "The snatches of what I'd seen - they were from his - You-Know-Who's - past."

 _The rush of water, and the glitter of ice all around, and everywhere the soft echo of whispering voices -_

"So what does that mean?" Ron pressed, as Hermione frowned to herself. "Do you still think that -"

"Yes," she nodded, snapping back to attention. "There was something we didn't know, something that Harry was trying to tell me. I don't know how he knew - I guess Dumbledore must have shown him." She saw Ron purse his lips, and decided to ignore his continued scepticism. "But the point is that You-Know-Who _did_ do something, I saw it in his head. There was a book that talked about something called The Well of Souls, and he went there - to Iceland - and -"

"You can't be serious." Theo's customary pallor had faded even further, his hazel eyes wide and disbelieving.

"What?" Hermione asked, startled by the sudden change in his demeanour.

There was silence for a long moment as Theo shook his head slowly, his mouth half open as though he was trying to think how to answer her question.

"It's an old story." Luna had sidled out from where she had stood just behind Theo. Her eyes fixed on something slightly above and to the left of Hermione's face, her expression the usual faraway one, but then she gave a little twitch and looked Hermione directly in the eye.

"A gateway between the quick and the dead," Luna said softly, tipping her head. "If you bathe in the waters you can hear their voices, and if you call their name as a spell you can sing them back to the light." She hummed, soft and off-key, and Hermione watched, entranced, as the other girl reached a fine-boned hand up to trace something invisible on the air. "'That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies'," Luna whispered, and her voice had a strange timbre to it, as though it contained its own echo. Hermione shivered, recognising the phrase as one of the ones that she had circled in the old Bible.

Abruptly Luna's hand dropped, and her thin frame was wracked by a shudder. "Something to that effect, anyway," she murmured, finally looking away from Hermione and up to Theo. "I'm tired now," she said. "Too many Nargles."

He wrapped a gentle arm around her, his face pinched with worry as he drew her into his side. "Like Luna says," Draco said, after a few moments had passed. "It's an old story, but one that I'd never have thought much of."

"A bit like the Deathly Hallows, you mean," Hermione said, her eyes raising to Ron's. He grimaced, and looked away.

"Most legends have their roots in fact," Anthony nodded. "But a gateway between Life and Death?"

"There was one in the Department of Mysteries." Ron had turned back, face still set in a frown. "Remember Harry saying?"

"You-know-who had the whole place destroyed," Theo said, one hand smoothing absently over Luna's hair. "I always thought that was a bit odd, he was so - so _vehement_ about it, I thought it was about the prophecies but maybe -"

"Speaking with the dead, Luna?" Hermione asked, trying to make her voice as gentle as possible. The Ravenclaw witch had retreated ever further into her own strangeness since she had been captured by Snatchers years ago, and now seemed only to come out of herself rarely, and around Theo. Now, she blinked owlishly at Hermione, her eyes huge and almost glowingly pale.

"He had questions to which he wanted answers," Luna said softly. "And he got them." She closed her eyes, frowning gently as though she were in pain. "But you saw it," she sighed, her voice barely louder than a breath. "And he's spoken to you. He's waiting for you to find him."

"Harry," Hermione breathed, feeling, as she had for months now, the thrill of his name, the sense of nervous possibility that surrounded her memories of him. "To call a name as a spell..." from the corner of her eye she saw Luna nod slightly. Hermione turned to Ginny, tried to draw a smile onto her face. "Do we know anyone who can get me to Iceland?"

The red-haired witch exhaled loudly through her nose. "He won't do it for free," she said.

"Why do you think Granger's asking you?" Draco smirked. "We all know Blaise is a sucker for a redhead."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Merry Christmas to all of you! If you want something a little more cheery for Christmas, head over to my/ **olivieblake's** tumblr pages, where you will find a recording of our collaborative fic, **Epistles**. On the subject of olivie, she and **littlechmura** have collaborated on a graphic novel called **Alpha** which I URGE YOU to purchase - www dot enter-alpha dot com. You won't regret! Happy holidays xxx_


	4. In the waves of a foreign air

_**Chapter Four: In the waves of a foreign air**_

* * *

 _ **Soon**_

"Why me?" she asked softly. "Why not Ron, or Ginny, or -"

His eyes caught the light as he looked at her, and Hermione fell silent, feeling the press of his gaze against her skin, quickening her blood, making her pulse a raging storm.

"You were the only one who followed," he said quietly. "And besides, you're the only one who could understand, Hermione."

Her name on his lips like a spell, calling her forward, the way that she had called him, and her hand splayed on his chest, feeling the insistent beat of his heart against her palm.

* * *

 _ **Now - July 10th 2002**_

" _You could have been killed."_

 _His voice came from behind her, and Hermione turned, squinting into the bright sunlight. His messy hair was silhouetted against it, his face cast in shadow. "I wasn't though," she said. "We had a plan. And in any case it was you that said -"_

" _I said he had the information you need. I didn't say that you should put yourself in -"_

" _Harry," she said quietly, and he stopped. Hermione held up a hand to shield her eyes, trying to get a better look at his face, but the light behind him was too much. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get you back. I want to see justice do-"_

" _Justice!" He laughed, though it was low and humourless. "Do you really still believe in justice, Hermione?"_

 _She felt her mouth tighten, her throat thick with hurt; with the crushing disappointment of having found that life was not fair, was not just. "Not anymore," she conceded._

 _"Good," he said, and she could hear it in his voice that he was smiling now. "Justice is irrational anyway."_

 _Hermione sat up, still staring at him. "Well," she found herself saying, "It would be just like you to think that."_

 _His hand shot out and caught her chin, his grip almost painful as he pulled her face towards his. His eyes glittered, jewel-bright, and Hermione felt her stomach clench, certain that if his fingers did not leave a bruise, his gaze just might._

 _"People talk about justice being_ served _," he murmured. "Whereas revenge is something you_ take _."_

" _Harry…" she breathed again, lifting her hand towards his cheek, her fingers a hair's breadth from his skin -_

"Hermione!"

She woke up with startling suddenness, her breath short, her heart beating wildly. Unthinking, she started to bring her fingers to her chin, sure that she would feel the mark of his touch, but then the hammering at the door that must have woken her began again, Ron shouting her name.

"Hermione, wake up!"

"What is it?" she asked, throwing the door open, her voice clipped with irritation at the interruption.

 _What if it had come a minute later?_ She wondered. _What if he had -_

"We finally heard back from Blaise," Ron said, not waiting before pushing past her into the room, Anthony at his heels. The excitement in their faces was enough to force down the memory of the dream -

 _\- for now -_

\- and the news was a relief; it had been over two weeks since they had set the charms and sent the hawk. Hermione had been beginning to worry that something had gone wrong, that they had been somehow intercepted, or _worse_ , that Blaise had been compromised.

But it couldn't be bad news, she realised, her eyes flicking between the two of them. Anthony had a small smile on his face as Ron had screwed up his nose in annoyance. "And?" she asked impatiently.

"Not particularly sophisticated," Anthony said, passing her a slip of parchment. "But it does the job."

"Why are you laughing?" Hermione asked, before she started reading, and the corners of Anthony's mouth turned upwards like the curled edges of the missive.

"Blaise sent flowers with it," he said. "Asters." Hermione frowned, thinking back to OWL Herbology. _Aster_ , she remembered. _Elegance. Daintiness._

 _Patience._

When she looked up at him, Anthony held her gaze, his green eyes steady.

"Ginny said she's never liked flowers and he should know when to stop trying," Ron huffed, shattering the stillness that had fallen as he threw himself petulantly into one of the deep leather armchairs that were scattered through the room.

"That doesn't sound particularly vehement," Hermione mused, looking away from Anthony to read the message.

 _The line one gets for playing a game  
_ _Of the time one passes in paradise  
_ _The sky the colour of a flame  
_ _The day's reflection in your eyes  
_ _Look for me where I left you  
_ _There will I be again._

"He's getting better," she ventured, and from the corner of her eye she saw Anthony nod, folding his arms and finally turning away slightly. Something about the movement made her relax, release a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

A score meant the twentieth, and seven was presumably July. A red sky and the day's reflection she had to conclude meant sunset, but she didn't know what _where I left you_ might indicate.

"Did Ginny say anything about what this meant?" she asked.

Anthony winced slightly, "She didn't really seem to be in the mood for conversation."

"Do you think she'd tell me?" Hermione asked, voicing the question to both of them. Anthony was subtle, and good at reading people, but Ron was a Weasley, and shared the same hothead temperament as his sister.

"Girls tell girls stuff," he shrugged now. "Better you than me."

* * *

 _ **Before - October 7th 1998**_

The voices were a quiet hiss of furious whispers, pitched low enough not to wake anyone, but impossible to miss if you weren't already sleeping. Hermione slipped along the landing, following the sound to Ginny's bedroom, where the door stood slightly ajar.

"I've told you, over and over, I'm not going to -"

"He will come for your family eventually, you know he will, and he will not be gentle when he does -"

"Maybe not but at least we'll -"

"I could not bear to know that you were dead, and I might have saved you."

The words were pitched low, and Hermione blushed, feeling guilty for having overheard, and yet not quite able to believe it, because she knew that voice, low and melodious, though she had only ever really heard contempt in it.

"Blaise," Ginny said, "Blaise, you know I can't -"

Hermione had wondered, knew others in the group had too, at the tension between the pair of them; the taut, teasing flirtatiousness with which they addressed one another. She knew that Harry had broken things off with Ginny before Bill and Fleur's wedding, knew that he had felt himself bound to go where she could not follow. Knew, too, that Ginny had spent her seventh year at Hogwarts fighting a war on a different front.

And wars required allies.

She searched for surprise in her reaction, and couldn't find it. It made an odd sort of sense, Hermione thought, that Ginny; fiery, impetuous Ginny; would have buried her hurt in somebody cool and quiet and watchful.

Still waters, to temper wildfire.

"Bill and Fleur are -" Blaise was saying.

"Fleur's pregnant, it's completely different." Ginny's voice was a flat dismissal, but there was a pause - enough time for a hand to stroke a cheek, for a shaky breath to be drawn, then -

"Does it have to be?" Blaise asked, his voice urgent and earnest in a way that Hermione had never heard before.

"I'm staying," Ginny said, and though her tone brooked no argument Hermione caught the quaver in it; the whisper of regret.

"Well," Blaise murmured, "Your funeral," and Ginny gave a shocked little laugh that became a gasp that sent Hermione stumbling back, continuing downstairs to get the glass of water she had woken up for.

When Blaise had arrived at The Burrow two days before, sent by his mother in response to a desperate plea from Andromeda, Hermione had been stunned by the reactions of those who had been at Hogwarts the previous year. Neville, Dean and Seamus seemed to treat Blaise with a wary, grudging respect. As for Ginny, she had half-turned away without even greeting him, but Hermione had seen the way her eyes caught and held Blaise's, the way his posture shifted so that he was always angled slightly towards her.

He would be taking Andromeda, Teddy, Bill and Fleur, and Dean and Seamus too; spiriting them out of the country with an international portkey that seemed to have been acquired by some dubious means.

"The further you travel, the more there is to trace," Blaise explained over dinner. He had managed to ingratiate himself to Molly by eating everything put in front of him, never once letting his impeccable manners slip. They were lucky that the Burrow was practically self-sufficient, Hermione thought ruefully, as she remembered the paucity of food the last time they had been on the run.

"The border wards will be triggered by any sort of international travel," Blaise was explaining. "It's pretty much unavoidable, and once you've activated the wards, however you do it, you become traceable, whether you're apparating, on a broom, or using a portkey."

"So how do you get around that?" Bill asked, his scarred features drawn into a frown that made him look more than usually wolfish.

"We use a modification to the charms," Blaise said. "It reroutes the trace via any active portkey in a 500-mile radius, so -"

"So anyone trying to track the journey would have to check multiple destinations." Hermione finished quietly, and Blaise nodded.

"Thus, unlike apparition or broom travel, the portkey becomes effectively untraceable," he said, with a wicked smile.

Hermione frowned at him, "But surely you could track the magical signature on a portkey?"

Blaise sniffed and sipped his water. "A great shame that a large number of federal portkeys were liberated from the Italian Ministry a few months ago" he said, making a show of studying his fingernails before his eyes cut to Ginny. Her head was half-cocked to listen, though she steadfastly avoided his gaze. "I'm here on official diplomatic business to help the British Ministry find any such portkeys that might have ended up in the wrong hands. Or at least I was," he said with a smirk, "until I returned to Milan two days ago."

"You're helping the Ministry?" Hermione asked, disbelieving.

"First rule of being a spy, Granger," Blaise let the old condescension bleed into his voice, though when he looked at her his eyes danced with wry amusement. "Play both sides of the board."

* * *

 _ **Now - July 10th 2002**_

There was no way it could have lasted, Hermione reflected as she made her way through the corridors of Hogwarts towards the Transfiguration classroom. Blaise could only manage so many illegal portkeys until suspicion would have fallen on him, and the last time they had received word from him had been nearly two years ago - a note delivered by a sparrowhawk (the bird chosen for its ability to slip past magical barriers) bearing only an address in Montenegro, and the message _For emergencies._

"Ginny?" she called quietly, stepping through the door and slipping her way between the lengths of silk that fell from the ceiling.

Voldemort had laughed, Draco had said, as he put Hogwarts to flame, and Hermione had shivered to think about it; how the boy Tom Riddle, who had found his first home, the first place that he truly belonged, in the castle, could have set the place alight and watched it burn.

But when they had returned to it, following Draco's reckless conviction that it was the last place Voldemort would suspect, it was to find that while the Fiendfyre had done its work in destroying much of Hogwarts, the blaze had also freed the wilder, older magics that had been dug into the very foundations. It had taken a long time, and at first they had not noticed the way that the rooms that they chose were altered, but gradually those spaces - the Charms and Divination classrooms for Luna and Parvati, Snape's dungeon quarters for Draco and Daphne, Ron in Gryffindor Tower - began to shape themselves to their new inhabitants.

The castle, much as the Room of Requirement had once done, provided for each of them, fashioning rooms from the ruins, each as unique as its occupant.

What did the flowing silks that covered the Transfiguration classroom say about Ginny? Hermione wondered.

What did the old wood and scarred leather seats of the Head's office say about her?

And then, briefly, Hermione's mind flicked to the blue and silver, to the deep quiet and sconces filled with bluebell flames in the room that had been Professor Vector's office, and thought _what did they mean_ , these features of the room where Anthony lived, that she had visited only once -

"Oh, it's you," Ginny said, turning her head to look at Hermione from where she lay, sprawled on what was just recognisable as Flitwick's old desk, but was now something resembling a banquette, covered in brightly coloured cushions.

"Who were you expecting?" Hermione asked, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

Ginny rolled her eyes, pushing herself upright. "There's no need to look at me like that," she said. "I haven't heard from him in years, not since they got wise to the Protean Charms."

Neville had had his Galleon on him when he'd fallen, and Hermione had watched, horrified, as the message around the edge of hers had changed.

 _Come out, come out._

She remembered the thrill of fear as she'd realised. "They'll be able to trace them," she'd whispered. "They have the signature now."

 _My signature,_ she'd thought with a shiver.

Even with the multitude of wards that they had laid thick about the castle - even with the Unplottables, with the Fideliuses, with the Notice-Me-Nots - they couldn't afford the risk.

Ginny had been crying silently when she surrendered her Galleon, though she had never explained herself, and Hermione had felt awful for even wanting to pry, as she turned her wand on the thing and muttered, " _Reducto."_

"Where is he coming to?" Hermione asked now, sitting on the cushions by Ginny's feet, folding her legs beneath her.

With a sniff Ginny pushed herself onto her elbows. "The Astronomy Tower," she said, poking at one of the cushions. "There's a gap in the wards, where the railing meets the stone -"

"A _gap_?" Hermione asked, aghast, and Ginny rolled her eyes.

"You'd have to know exactly where it is, and even then you're apparating to the lip of the platform." She frowned, continuing to jab the cushion, which hadn't done anything to deserve its treatment except be there, as far as Hermione could see. "It's getting close enough to apparate that's the problem."

"Right then," Hermione said, her mind still reeling from the revelation that there was a gap in their defences. She'd known about the thin spot above the lake - about the patch right outside the castle gates where Theo had apparated to - but that there was a weak point in the castle _itself_ and Ginny hadn't said _anything_ -

"We have to have an escape route," the redhead said, leaning back and looking up at her, her jaw set mulishly, as though daring her to argue. Hermione pursed her lips, but couldn't fault the reasoning.

"Will you leave?" she asked instead, the question as much of a surprise to her as it seemed to be to Ginny, who stared at her for a moment before twisting around to sit upright next to her.

"No," she said quietly, leaning her shoulder against Hermione's, the defensiveness gone from her expression, leaving her face drawn in lines of pain. "If you're going to bring Harry back…" she tailed off, then seemed to gather herself. "I want to be here, when You-Know-Who falls. I want revenge for what he did to my family."

 _Revenge is something you take_ , Hermione remembered, and the echo was like an itch beneath her skin, cold and warmth all at once, and she pushed herself to her feet.

"Good," she said. "I think we'll need you."

Ginny nodded, and Hermione felt her eyes follow her as she twisted her way back between the scarves. _Like a maze_ , she thought. Shifting walls of gossamer fineness, with the girl, with the weight of her grief, at their centre.

Once out in the corridor Hermione half-turned to go back to her own room, but then she felt again that tingle in her nerves, the twist of something in her stomach.

 _Revenge is something you take -_ and his face so close to hers, fingers like steel holding her chin.

Hermione took a deep breath, and started up the corridor towards the office that had once belonged to Professor Vector.


	5. He vanishes that you may understand

_**Chapter Five: He vanishes that you may understand**_

* * *

 _ **Soon**_

"I realised something," he said as he stepped behind her, casually removing himself from her line of sight in a way that was deliberate enough to make her blood jump in her veins.

"What?" she asked, hearing the way her breath caught in the single word, her fingers tightening into fists at her sides as she fought the shiver that threatened to rip its way through her. "What did you realise?"

His breath ghosted against the back of her neck and she sucked in a sharp little gasp, hearing him laugh softly behind her.

"It's a dangerous disadvantage," he murmured, his lips following the curve of her shoulder as he brushed her hair aside. "Feeling, that is," he went on, as his hand traced the neckline of her jumper.

"How -" Hermione asked, then paused, swallowing, as his other hand drifted around the curve of her hip to rest lightly against her stomach. "How so?"

He laughed again as she leaned back against him, and he reached beneath the jumper to palm her breast, pressing and pinching and teasing and _how_ -

"Are you thinking of him?" he whispered, his lips right by her ear; his teeth a taunt, a temptation, as they grazed the lobe; and Hermione jumped as his fingers dove beneath her waistband, his hand curving to fit itself around her.

"No," she said, her voice low, catching in her throat as she arched her back, pressing into him, her hand moving to tangle itself in his hair as she surrendered to a tremor of longing at the feel of him, hard against her.

And as he bit down on her neck and squeezed her breast and pushed her underwear roughly aside, it was true. He was all that she thought of.

* * *

 _ **Before - 19th February 2000**_

Her first thought when she saw him outside the gates was that it was a ghost come to life. Pale, thin, and covered in blood, it took her a few moments to recognise him, and when she did it was a bone-deep shock.

"How did you find us?" Draco demanded, his voice hard, steady as his outstretched arm, his levelled wand, and Anthony glared at him, his lip curling with disgust at the former Death Eater, before he raised his hand, a scrappy piece of parchment caught between his fingers.

Hermione leaned forward, squinting in confusion and then disbelief as she realised that the parchment held in Anthony's hand was -

"Where the hell did you get that?" thundered Ron, reaching out to grab the Marauder's Map, but Anthony was quicker, jerking his arm back, whipping the Map out of reach.

"Smith," he said, the name dripping derision. "Little shit searched Potter's body after he died, and he found this."

"How would he even -" Hermione started to ask, but stopped when Anthony turned his derisive gaze on her.

"Really? As though Potter was ever subtle about it," he said. "I'd be surprised if there was a DA member who didn't -"

"That doesn't explain why you have it," Hermione cut him off quietly, her wand still out and levelled at Anthony's head.

Years. It had been years, and yet he was here - had survived, somehow, on his own. Hermione frowned - on his own? A quick glance at Daphne was met with a shake of the head - the other girl able to read the suspicion in Hermione's eyes.

"Smith wasn't an idiot," Anthony said. "Figured he'd keep hold of this until he could prove it was worth something."

"What is it?" Draco asked quietly, and Hermione started, realising that of course he wouldn't know.

"The Marauder's Map," she said quietly. "It's a map of Hogwarts, and it shows," she swallowed a sudden swell of horror. "It shows everyone in the castle, moving in real time."

"It shows WHAT?" Daphne squeaked, and Draco dropped his wand to look at Hermione, his expression aghast.

"Did it not occur to you to mention that Potter had a fucking magical map of the castle on him when he died?" he hissed, and Hermione saw Anthony smirk slightly as she flushed.

"It didn't occur to me that anyone who knew what it was would be enough of a -" she struggled to find a suitable word to convey the depths of her disgust.

"Toerag," Anthony said quietly. "But now he's a dead toerag, so his plan to sell you all out to You-Know-Who has been somewhat derailed."

Hermione fought a shiver at the cool way that Anthony shrugged off the murder of one of their former classmates, but then he glanced at her, and she caught a glimpse of the haunted, hunted look that was hidden beneath the blood on his face, the bruises on his jaw.

"You weren't tempted to sell us out yourself?"

Anthony's eyebrows pulled together, and he looked away from Hermione to scoff at Draco. "I'd like to think I'm not quite as much of a shit as Smith, thanks very much."

"We'll see," the blond wizard's jaw set in a sharp line and his eyes narrowed to slits. Anthony jerked, taking half a step backwards as Draco forced his way into his mind through Legilimency. For a moment there was silence except for Anthony's ragged breathing, and then abruptly Draco dropped his wand, his whole posture relaxing.

"He's clean," he said. "But he's still got some explaining to do."

* * *

 _ **Then - 17th May 2002**_

"What do you want?" he whispered, the words pressed into the skin of her chest as he followed the line of her bra with his mouth, the heat of his breath making her skin pebble with gooseflesh.

"Just…" Hermione whispered. "Just - please - just -"

He shifted a knee between her legs, settling his hips against hers and resting his chin on her breastbone to give her a serious look. "Do you want me to make love to you, Hermione?"

She blinked in surprise, frowning as she struggled for an answer that wouldn't be somehow insulting -

"Or do you want me to fuck you until you forget whatever it is you're scared of?" Anthony pushed himself up on his elbows, his copper-brown hair glinting in the bluebell light of his room. Hermione laughed in spite of herself, raised a hand to place it against the reassuring pressure of his bare chest - strong and warm and _alive_.

"What makes you think I'm scared?" she asked, looking not at his face but at the contrast of their skins, hers a soft gold and his several shades lighter. Her voice sounded small, almost defensive, and she felt the rumble of his laugh under her fingers.

"Please," Anthony murmured, shifting his weight to one side and moving to capture her hand in his. "You and Malfoy are hatching some insane plan to get information out of You-Know-Who. If you're not scared then you're an idiot. And," he reached over her head, pulling her hand with his, stretching her arm upwards, "We both know you're not that."

Hermione stared back at him, disarmed, not sure whether to be relieved or afraid. She was just tired, she realised. Tired of pretending, of plotting and hoping and planning and _keeping secrets_. Tired of the itch beneath her skin that was half longing and half fear and wholly frustration.

 _Please, Hermione_ ; _his_ voice echoing in her mind, making her heart speed and her throat tighten, and she just wanted to _forget_ \- to just let herself not _think_ for however long she could -

"Well?" Anthony asked, smiling his most disarming smile, and Hermione sighed, shifted under him so that she could move her other hand up to stroke the reddish scruff that lined his jaw.

"You don't mind?" she asked softly; somehow impossibly glad that he wasn't asking her to lie about it, that he didn't seem to expect anything more of her.

Anthony's eyes, a soft, mossy green - _so unlike Harry's_ , she found herself thinking - held hers as he leaned over her, not breaking her gaze as he brushed his lips across her mouth. "I know what it's like to need to forget," he said quietly, and when Hermione pressed back against him, when she closed her eyes and licked her tongue across his lips, she felt a tension she hadn't realised was in his body relax.

"I know I'm not him." The words were gentle, kind against her skin, and Hermione sighed, feeling forgiven for something she hadn't even let herself realise that she was feeling guilty about.

It didn't occur to her until later to wonder what it was that Anthony was forgetting; whether there was somebody that _she_ should have known she wasn't.

* * *

 _ **Now - July 10th 2002**_

"I wondered if you'd be back." Anthony's voice was careful when he opened his door to find her standing there. Hermione was thrumming with nervous energy; the almost argument with Ginny, the terrible feeling of being caught between fear and excitement; and the echo, still of her dream.

 _Revenge is something you take -_

Anthony crossed his arms casually, his body angled to fill the doorway. A barrier, but not an insurmountable one, and still Hermione could feel her mouth threatening to twist into a grimace; guilt trying to claw its way out of her stomach and onto her face.

"Well," she said, spreading her arms a little helplessly. "Here I am."

He watched her for what seemed a very long moment, making heat rise up her neck and into her cheeks. Finally he dropped his arms, and stepped back from the door.

"You'd better come in then."

It was as much a practical consideration as it was an invitation, but Hermione stepped past him anyway into the blue-lit room, and was abruptly assailed by the memory of the last time she'd been there.

 _His hands his lips his voice -_

"Do you want a drink?" Anthony asked, snapping Hermione out of her reverie, and she looked at him, still and watchful. He'd arrived at the end of their first winter in Hogwarts, and though he'd never said much about the nearly two years he'd spent on the run she knew it must have been bad.

Knew that there must be things he wanted to forget.

Unbidden, the spray of Smith's blood painted itself across his cheek in her mind's eye, and Hermione shivered, feeling suddenly cold in the bluish light.

"Hermione." She blinked, the image disappearing into Anthony's quizzical frown. "A drink?"

"Yeah," she smiled, giving herself a shake. "Any of that firewhiskey left?"

Professor Vector had, as it turned out, kept her office well-stocked with Ogden's finest, and Anthony pulled a bottle of it from a nearby cupboard rather than answering, summoning two pewter beakers that Hermione vaguely recognised as having been part of the standard NEWT Potions kit.

"So," Anthony said, once he'd poured the drinks and floated Hermione's over to her. "What brings you here?"

It was so different from last time, when they'd already been a little tipsy, when she'd been too on edge and wanting and _needing_ to escape and -

She'd needed it then. And she needed it now.

"You were right," she said, draining her cup and setting it on the floor before crossing the room to where Anthony had leaned against the desk that was pushed up to the wall. "Before," Hermione murmured, resting her elbows on the hollows below his collarbone and pushing his hair back from his face, "When you said you're not him."

His eyebrows twitched together, and he made a little hum of enquiry, but Hermione was glad when she heard the dull tap of his beaker against the desktop; when she felt the solid weight of his hands settle at her hips. "You're not him," she whispered, tipping her head and moving her mouth towards his, gazing at him from under her lashes. "But then, I think there's someone that I'm not either."

Anthony went still, his eyes widening slightly. "I -" he stammered, but Hermione silenced him with a light kiss. Anthony groaned softly, his hand coming up to catch in her hair, holding her there as he deepened the kiss, his tongue flicking across the seam of her lips.

"It's okay," she said softly, when they came up for air. "If we're just using each other then I don't -"

"Be quiet," Anthony said, as his hands made their way beneath the thin cotton of her shirt to slide over her skin, holding her tight against him. "If you need my help to forget, then I'm happy to give it."

"Very generous of you," Hermione whispered, letting her hands trail down his slim torso to find the buckle of his belt, which she opened with a flick of her fingers.

Anthony smiled at her, and just for a moment she saw a flicker of her own sadness reflected in his eyes, before he closed them and nudged his nose against hers. "I'm a very generous man."

* * *

If the others knew then they said nothing, and Hermione was grateful for it. Being with Anthony silenced the echoes in her head of conversations that she had never had, quieted the jangle of her nerves whenever she thought about what had to be done. The days slipped by in the oddly sleepy way of high summer, their edges blurring into one another in a tangle of sheets.

" _What do you think you'll be willing to give," Anthony asked her, "to bring him back?"_

 _Hermione blinked, touched her fingers, so lightly, to the tiny line at the edge of his mouth. "Anything," she whispered. "I'd give anything to bring him back."_

She thought of that conversation now, reflecting on the solid, inevitable truth of the words as she watched the sun slip behind one of the faraway mountains. This time tomorrow Blaise would be here, and she would be leaving - off to chase a dream and a stolen memory. She wondered what her twelve-year-old self, convinced the answer to everything could be found in a book, would have thought.

" _Books!"_ she'd cried, " _And cleverness! There are more important things."_

"Friendship," Hermione whispered to herself, "And bravery." Her fingers tightened on her wand.

At the sound of soft footsteps behind her Hermione turned to see Parvati's sleek hair emerging through the trapdoor entrance to the Astronomy Tower. Her smile of welcome froze on her face when she took in the other girl's stricken expression, and Hermione scrambled to her feet, only realising her hand was shaking when she lifted her wand.

"What is it?" she asked, "What's happened?"

"I need to show you something," Parvati's voice was steady, but her eyes were wide with worry, her face pale in the dying light.

"What?" Hermione asked, before her eyes caught on the deck of cards clutched in Parvati's bronze hand and she fought a sigh of impatience. "Parvati you know I don't -"

"Please," Parvati said, kneeling down and setting the deck on the flagstones. "You're the one who's about to go haring off after something you saw in a dream." Her voice was hard, but when she looked up at Hermione her eyes were pleading. "Just - just look."

She fanned the cards, face up, across the floor. The major and minor arcana smirked up at the ceiling, swords flashing and wands dancing; cups tipping and pentacles slowly turning.

"What am I looking at?" Hermione asked, kneeling in spite of herself, and Parvati grimaced.

"Turn them face down," she said, "Then pick one."

Still chastened enough to comply, Hermione did as she was asked. When she flipped the card from the centre of the pack the skeleton grinned up at the pair of them, and Hermione frowned.

 _Death_.

"Well, they're interpretative, right?" she asked, "It doesn't literally mean -" but Parvati interrupted her.

"Pick another."

With barely-concealed impatience, Hermione reached for another card, turning it to reveal -

"There are two?" she asked, confused, staring into the empty eyes of the second skull.

"No," Parvati whispered, shaking her head slowly, her eyes never leaving the cards. "Pick another."

And she did; again and again, and every time it was to see the bleached bones, the waving scythe, until only three cards remained.

Hermione swallowed her rising dread, and turned them.

 _The Hanged Man._

 _The High Priestess._

 _The Lovers._

"What does it mean?" she asked quietly.

Parvati stared at the cards for a moment, before raising her almond-shaped eyes to Hermione's. "I don't know," she whispered. "I've never seen anything like it before, and I don't -"

They were interrupted by a crash as two bodies appeared from nowhere at the edge of the balcony, skidding across the floor to come to a stop between the two girls. Hermione had barely registered the bloodied features of a wizard she thought might have been a couple of years above them on the Slytherin Quidditch team before Blaise was jerking himself upright, aiming a kick at the other boy, and looking around, his eyes wild.

"Hermione!" he said when he saw her. "Thank Merlin - take this -" pressing what looked like a snuffbox into her hand - "You have to go, right now, I'll warn the others but if you're going to get out it has to be now otherwise -"

"What's going on?" Parvati asked, and if Hermione thought she'd been pale before now the other girl looked almost ill.

"They know you're here," Blaise said simply. "Fuck knows how, but they know, and they're -" his eyes landed back on Hermione and he shoved her roughly towards the edge. "You have to _go_ ," he insisted, and at his next words she felt an icy wave of horror.

"They're coming."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** my thanks to everyone for reading, and love to Olivie as ever for patience, guidance, and bouncy-walling._


	6. To entice the dead

_**Chapter 6: To entice the dead**_

* * *

 _ **Then - June 13th 2002**_

"You're sure you want to do this?" Draco's expression was grim, a pulse clearly visible in the tight set of his jaw.

"Bit late if she isn't," Ron scoffed, but Hermione could hear the worry in his voice, and when she glanced towards him it was to find his gaze fixed on the other side of the clearing, as though he couldn't quite make himself look at her.

"The answer's in his head," she said. "Whatever it is - whatever this _thing_ is that Harry's been trying to tell me, Vo-" her breath caught, the familiar stumble as the spell closed her throat, and stilled her tongue, and Hermione closed her eyes, stamping down upon the rush of impatience that had led to the slip.

" _You-Know-Who's_ got the answer," she said finally, "and we need it. There's no other way." She tried to make her voice sound determined but worried that she was falling short; succeeding only in sounding petulant.

"We've come this far now," Daphne said. "Theo has everything set." She placed her hand on Hermione's arm in a silent show of support. "Besides," a smile ghosted over her mouth as she looked towards Draco, "You don't want all those Occlumency lessons to go to waste."

Draco exhaled through his nose, his mouth twisting to pull the scar tight across his cheek, though Hermione was fairly sure the expression hid a faint smirk. "Endless manipulation," he huffed. "It seems I'm destined to relive my parents' marriage after all."

Daphne's smile froze, her eyes narrowing, and Hermione glanced up to finally catch Ron's eye - his look of resignation.

"We're not married," Daphne said tartly, after a tight pause. "You picked the wrong sister if that's what you wanted."

"You know it isn't," Draco's voice had dropped, softened already into an apology, and Hermione jerked her head at Ron, wanting to give the pair some privacy to go over the familiar argument.

Wizarding betrothals, as it turned out, were hard to break, even if one party _had_ absconded with a band of wanted outlaws.

" _She's loyal to Voldemort," Daphne had said quietly, blue eyes following the handle of the spoon as it stirred the stew. "My sister. She was supposed to be the one who - who - she and Draco, but…"_

 _Hermione waited, patience learned the hard way, and finally Daphne looked up at her. "He chose me, but we can't even be handfast unless she lets the contract break, which she won't, because…" She gave a shaky sigh, and Hermione pretended not to see the tear that Daphne swiped from her cheek. "We were sisters, once, but I don't think that counts for much any more. Not to Astoria, anyway."_

"Their timing's terrible, as usual," Ron said quietly, now. "Still," he frowned slightly, eyes on the pair of blondes as he and Hermione stood waiting a discreet distance away. "It must be pretty rubbish."

"What?" Hermione asked, eyebrows drawing together in spite of herself.

"Well," Ron said, scuffing his foot through the underbrush as a red flush climbed his neck to stain his ears. "Knowing what you want, but not being able to…" his voice trailed away, and Hermione felt herself blushing to match him.

"Is that…" Ron said eventually, "Is that how…?"

"I don't think any of us _really_ knew what we wanted, do you?" Hermione said, trying to sound amused, but hearing the wistful sadness in her voice. "Except to defeat You-Know-Who, and look how that turned out."

Ron was silent for a moment before he met her eye again, and to her surprise Hermione saw a shadow of the mischievous Weasley smile fitting itself over his mouth. "Where's your Gryffindor spirit?" he murmured, nudging her elbow. "It's a work in progress, that's all. Now," he nodded to where Draco and Daphne were picking their way towards them. "Are you ready to get yourself caught by some Snatchers?"

* * *

 _ **Now - July 19th 2002**_

"Go!" Blaise yelled, and the urgency in his voice made any questions die in her throat. With the silver box that he'd passed her gripped in one fist, Hermione pushed herself from the ground, sprinting for the railing and barely skidding out of the way as another body materialised in a flurry of dark robes and glinting mask.

Hermione heard Parvati shout from behind her, and spun to see the other girl duelling with the new arrival. Blaise and the man who had followed him through - who must, Hermione realised, have been another Death Eater - were grappling with one another, wands seemingly forgotten. As she watched, frozen, Blaise wrenched a fist free and socked his opponent solidly on the jaw, sending him reeling back.

Blaise turned towards her, frowning in apparent exasperation when he saw Hermione still there.

"What the fuck, Granger?" He started towards her and then growled as the other wizard grabbed his ankle. "Warrington _stay fucking down_!" He looked back at Hermione, and she saw panic dancing in his green-gold eyes. "You have to go, before any more of them arrive -" he stamped on Warrington's fingers, making the other man yelp with pain.

" _Hermione!"_ Blaise's voice was tight, sharp, snapping her back to herself. "Take the portkey and bloody _go -_ it's -" he flicked his wand and Warrington fell still and silent. "Run," Blaise growled. "You have to find Potter, bring him back so we can - can _end_ this. We'll hold them off - you -"

There was a _pop_ from behind her and Hermione cried out as a hand grabbed her hair roughly. She barely had time to recognise Corban Yaxley's leering features before Parvati was aiming her wand.

" _Diffindo!"_ she yelled, and Yaxley screamed as his hand fell away, soaking Hermione's shoulder in blood.

She recoiled in horror, feeling behind her for the gap in the wards. The air was twisting, coming alive with the odd, staticky feel of impending apparition.

Hermione shot one last hopeless look at Parvati, saw her mouth open -

And she was falling, her foot stepping back to land in empty air as the world lurched away from her, the squeeze and pull of travel seizing her stomach and wrenching it up to somewhere near her collarbone.

She landed hard, pitching forwards and scraping her palm on the rough scree of the hillside, her other hand hugging the portkey and her wand to her chest.

The silence was abrupt, almost oppressive, broken only by the light twitter of evening birdsong and a faint rushing sound that she realised belatedly was her own heartbeat.

How had they known?

How could they have _known_?

She heard her heartbeat pick up speed with her desperate, quavering breaths.

Betrayed.

They'd been _betrayed_ , they had to have been; why else would the Death Eaters have come - how else would they have known?

Unless - and the thought sent another, horrible curl of fear through her stomach - unless they'd tracked her or Theo, and had just been _waiting_ -

Her fingers clenched around her wand and then dropped both it and the portkey as though she'd been burned, bile rising up her throat as she fought to control the rising wave of panic. What if she'd led them there, and now she had run, but she still had her wand, they could still track it, still follow _her_ -

Hermione forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath. She hadn't had her wand on her when she'd been taken - had made out to the Snatchers that she didn't have one; that she had never replaced the Vinewood wand that had been taken from her at Malfoy Manor.

And it was true that the whole group been forced to share wands for months, until one rainy afternoon not long after they'd returned to Hogwarts, when Hermione, cursing the fact that she hadn't spent more time practicing wandless transfiguration, found herself being jabbed in the hip by a drawer in the Head's desk that had apparently thrown itself open of its own volition.

Just as the rooms had shaped themselves to their occupants, so it seemed the Castle had taken it upon itself to offer her the solution to her problems. Whatever had happened, when she'd picked up the elegant length of pale wood that had rolled its way across the base of the drawer, she had felt the familiar, sympathetic hum of _right_ ness tingle through her fingers.

Draco's eyes had narrowed when she'd shown him. "Rowan's rare," was all he'd said, and she hadn't questioned it then, though remembering now she wondered again at his expression.

 _Not the time_ , Hermione thought determinedly. "Focus," she muttered aloud as she knelt down, feeling blindly in the rapidly darkening evening. Her hasty apparition had taken her to the mouth of the cave where Sirius and Buckbeak had hidden out, years before, and she didn't want to risk a _Lumos_ this close to Hogwarts.

Not if there were Death Eaters nearby.

"Come _on_ ," she whispered, ignoring the sob that tried to break the words as she patted her hands in a widening circle. When her fingers finally closed around the familiar, smooth wood she released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. " _Accio_ portkey," she murmured, catching the silver box as it flew up from the ground nearby.

Hermione wasted no time in stashing the thing in her beaded bag, for once thankful for the paranoia that meant that she was never without it as she reached her arm in up to the shoulder and drew out her cloak. Dusk was rapidly becoming full dark, and though the day had been warm the stony landscape retained little of the heat.

When she went to throw the cloak over her shoulders Hermione's hand grazed her hair, which was still sticky with blood, and her stomach gave another, more violent lurch. She was barely quick enough to stumble away from the cave entrance before she was retching into one of the scrubby bushes.

She could still hear Yaxley's scream echoing in her ears, still see the fierce desperation on Parvati's face as her wand sliced through the air. And Hermione had left - had run - had _abandoned_ them - she inhaled sharply, stumbling backwards and raising a shaking hand to her mouth. She had to go back - she had to -

 _Run,_ Blaise had told her, his eyes desperate, his voice raw. _You have to find Potter._

 _Bring him back, so we can_ end _this._

She cast a shaky _Tergeo_ on her hair, though it did nothing to dispel the awful feeling of wrongness as she retreated back into the cave. A listless flick of her wand laid a cushioning charm on the narrow ledge at the back, and Hermione sank down, closing her eyes and seeing the faces of those she had left behind.

 _Parvati. Ginny. Draco. Daphne. Ron. Anthony. Theo. Luna. Blaise._

And one of them - one of them had -

No, it had to be something else, something they'd overlooked. None of them could have betrayed the others; they'd been too careful.

 _Obviously not careful enough._

Hermione scrunched her eyes tighter, enough to make spots of light and dark dance behind her lids, like the empty sockets and naked grin of the skulls on Parvati's cards.

 _Death._

She curled into a ball, trying to bury her sobs in her arms as she remembered the rest of the reading, turning over the identical cards one by one. All seventy-five of them; humming with the Castle's magic as though Hogwarts itself had wanted to deliver this dreadful warning.

Feeling herself drifting on the edge of exhaustion, Hermione's sobs subsided into hiccoughing gasps as her mind turned to the last three cards.

The High Priestess tilted her head and smiled her opaque smile, her hand reaching up to pluck one of the pomegranates that hung behind her.

The Hanged Man twirled endlessly at the end of the rope, his dark hair gleaming in the sunlight.

The Lovers reached for one another, hands outstretched, their palms bloody -

 _His hand on her skin, his grip insistent, the dance of his tongue with hers tasting sweet, and terrible - of longing and denial and of temptation._

" _Wake up Hermione", he whispered against her lips, and she felt his smile, felt his mouth press back when she moaned against him, his kiss soft and lingering and then -_

" _You need to wake up now. I'll see you soon."_

She shot upright, her heart beating wildly as she gasped for breath, her fingers raising to touch her mouth, his name forming soundlessly.

 _Harry_.

In all the months of dreaming; of strange, nameless emotions following her out of sleep and into reality. Through all of it, he had never once kissed her. Because he never _had_ before he'd - before he'd died - that hadn't been what they were. He had had Ginny, and she - she'd had whatever it was that she'd had with Ron. It had never been like that between them.

She remembered the look in his eyes as he'd died, as Voldemort had killed him. The way that her heart had clenched with sorrow.

It had never been like that, had it?

Hermione gave herself a shake, swinging her legs to the floor of the cave and then stilling as she heard a noise from outside, remembering with sudden, chilling clarity what he'd said to her.

 _You need to wake up now_.

She pressed herself back against the wall of the cave, casting a silent Disillusionment Charm just as Antonin Dolohov's cruel, handsome face appeared at the entranceway.

The scar that crawled across Hermione's ribs twinged at the sight of him, and she held her breath as his nose twitched, as though he could _smell_ her -

With a prickle of dread she hoped that Greyback wasn't there - but no, no, she'd seen him die, seen him torn from Lavender before he could get his teeth too deeply into her throat, his body hurled into a collapsing section of wall by the force of Remus's spell before Dolohov -

Before Dolohov murdered Remus, she remembered, her fear and horror hardening into something cold and resolute as she watched the Death Eater take a tentative step towards her. Hermione began, slowly, to raise her wand, running through a series of spells in her mind and trying to fix on one that would be appropriate, that would be fitting; would be _enough;_ when Dolohov paused, frowning, and looked directly at her.

Hermione froze, praying her Disillusionment would hold. Time seemed to slow to a standstill as Dolohov blinked, squinting into the gloomy interior of the cave, and then gave his head a shake, turning away.

"Nothing here!" Hermione heard him call; but it wasn't until the sound of his footsteps had faded down the mountainside that she slumped against the wall, gulping at the air as she waited for her hands to stop trembling.

* * *

She spent the day in the cave, afraid to stray too far from it for fear that she would run into the Death Eaters who were still, if the faint shouts and occasional sparks in the air were anything to go by, combing the surrounding area for her.

For anyone else who had escaped.

 _Don't think about that._

Hermione busied herself by making an inventory of everything in the beaded bag, which had been how she had planned to spend the day before -

 _Don't think about it_ , she told herself, polishing the lens of her telescope with the edge of her jumper before returning it to its place in what Harry had affectionately referred to as her 'Mary Poppins bag,' the shared joke making them grin at one another, and Ron crinkle his forehead in confusion.

 _Don't think about it._ She retied the long drawstrings of the bag around her waist, before pulling her jumper back down.

On the ground beside her knees the Marauder's Map lay folded, its edges fluttering innocuously in the low breeze.

 _Don't look_ , Hermione had told herself when her fingers first closed around it that morning.

 _Don't look_ , she'd repeated, as she chewed slowly on almonds and dried apricots, the midday sun streaming through the cave entrance.

"Don't look," she whispered now, as her hand crept towards the tatty parchment. The sky was reddening with the approach of evening, and the swirling dread that had sat low in the pit of her stomach all day was rising up, threatening to choke her.

Her fingers touched the parchment, and in her other hand the portkey glowed bright blue, and the world twisted away from her once more.

* * *

Hermione's feet slipped against wet stone, making her stumble, though this time she kept her balance.

At first when she opened her eyes she thought that what she was seeing was the after-image of the _Portus_ charm, but then she realised that the glowing blue light was the icy ceiling of another cave.

Casting aside the useless thought that she was apparently destined to lead a troglodytic existence from here onwards, Hermione turned, squinting into the brightness just outside. Probably an hour before sunset, but looking upwards she could see Polaris already out, a few degrees higher than at Hogwarts, and in the distance the wide, pale sky was cut off abruptly by the blunt shape of a mountain.

Just as she had seen in Voldemort's memory.

She turned slowly, peering back into the cave. There was a glimmer of something at the far end, and when she listened she could hear the trickling sound of water, and then, in the silence between breath and heartbeat, something that sounded just like -

 _Hermione_.

"Harry," she whispered, and then she was walking quickly, not quite running, back into the cave, towards the milky blue pool that cast its strange light onto the frozen walls.

When her toes hit the very lip of the pool Hermione stopped herself, trying to remember what Luna had said.

 _If you call their name as a spell you can sing them back to the light_.

Her skin prickled with goosebumps as she quickly stripped out of her jumper and jeans, untying the beaded bag and setting it and her wand down with her clothes and shoes so that she stood, shivering, in just her underwear. Not for the first time, Hermione wished that she had grown up with magic, with ritual. That she could find it all a little less…ridiculous at times like this.

"Come on," she told herself quietly. "Focus."

 _I'll see you soon,_ he'd whispered in her dream.

She picked up one of the black, jagged rocks from the floor, and sliced it across her palm.

"For what I offer," she murmured, then squeezed her fingers tight, letting a few drops of blood fall into the strange, blue water. Opening her eyes, she watched the red dispersing like ink.

"For whom I seek to find," Hermione breathed, before she leaned forwards and slid into the water. The shock of the cold pulled her breath from her in a gasp, and she fought for a moment to keep her head above water, before remembering what she had to do.

 _Harry_ , she thought desperately. _I need you - we need you_.

She remembered his laugh; his voice whispering her name. She thought of the flash of his eyes and the way that he'd tilted his head as he looked at her in her dream.

She remembered the feel of his lips against hers -

There was a rushing sound; the noise of many voices whispering; and then the water seemed to surge upwards, closing over Hermione's head and screaming into her lungs as she felt herself yanked down into the depths.

* * *

Afterwards, there would be days on end when she could remember nothing between the terrible pain of that first lungful of water, and the awful relief of coughing herself awake at the mouth of the cave.

Then all at once the memories would batter her, violent as a maelstrom; voices calling, hands grabbing, and there, shining through all of it, his smile, the hope and disbelief on his face, the words that he'd whispered as he touched her cheek, her hair, her mouth.

 _You're here. You came._

It had seemed mere moments, but of course it was far, far longer. Time didn't work properly in the in-between places; in the still pools of the universe where souls could be trapped in the eddies.

She'd pressed her lips against his, tasting him as an echo, but also as a certainty.

 _Of course. Of course I came._

* * *

 _ **Now - July 31st 2002**_

Hermione coughed, feeling the spasm of it through her whole body as she vomited water onto the ground next to her head.

"Ugh," she groaned, rolling onto her back. Her head swam and her mouth tasted salty and dry, her limbs weak and heavy. She was still wearing only her black cotton underwear, but the afternoon sun was pleasantly warm on her chilled flesh, and finally she pulled herself upright.

Everything was still, and quiet, and her heart clenched, hope withering as she realised that it hadn't worked.

 _But then how was she -_

Something moved in the corner of her eye, and Hermione's head whipped round to see a grey-robed figure stirring a few feet away, his messy head of wet, dark hair gleaming as he pushed himself upright.

"Harry?" she whispered, feeling a strange, giddy feeling of not quite daring, of barely hoping to believe that she'd done it - that she'd _done it_. "Is it really -"

He turned his face towards her, the sun catching on his profile, and Hermione's mind went blank, her ears filling with a low buzz of horror as she met his eyes - a deep, glittering blue.

"Hermione," he breathed, and it was the voice from her dreams, the voice that filled her with longing, with hope; the voice that she had thought - but it _couldn't -_

" _You came," he breathed, and she reached her hand up to glide her fingers along the arch of his cheekbone, marvelling at the unspoilt beauty of his face._

" _Of course," she whispered. "Of course I came."_

"No!" she choked out, scrambling backwards and away from him, feeling desperately for her wand before she realised that she had left it inside the cave.

And all the while he watched her, his blue eyes - sapphire to Harry's emerald, and _how could she not have known? -_ dark and patient and _knowing_ and Hermione wanted to scream, wanted to be sick, and wanted, somewhere deep and dark inside herself -

"I came here for _Harry_ ," Hermione croaked desperately. "I _asked_ for Harry, because I - we _need_ him, he's the only one who can stop You-Know - can stop _you -"_

"Interesting," Tom interrupted her softly, holding up a hand that he turned slowly back and forth, examining it under the golden light before he looked back at her. "You went looking for a saviour, and instead you got _me_."

His mouth widened into a smile that was heartbreakingly lovely; achingly cruel. "How very inconvenient for you."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** uh-oh. Thank you for reviewing and following, if I could beg a favour - please don't leave spoilers if you do review. Feel free to PM me instead!_


	7. Though heaven's disfavour prevail

**Previously, in Orphea:**

" _I came for_ Harry _," Hermione croaked desperately. "I asked for Harry, because I - we need him, he's the only one who can stop You-Know - can stop_ you _-"_

" _Interesting," Tom interrupted her softly, holding up a hand that he turned slowly back and forth, examining it under the golden light before he looked back at her. "You went looking for a saviour, and instead you got me."_

 _His mouth widened into a smile that was heartbreakingly lovely; achingly cruel. "How very inconvenient for you."_

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Though heaven's disfavour prevail**

* * *

 _ **31st July 2002**_

Hermione glanced back towards the cave, calculating the distance, the strength of her wandless magic. When she flicked her gaze back to Tom his eyes had narrowed, his mouth pinching at the corners.

She took a deep breath and bolted, scraping her hands on the rough, black rock as she hurled herself back towards the mouth of the cave, the spell tearing itself from her throat – " _Accio -"_

" _Accio wand!"_

Hermione spun in place, to see Tom twirling her wand between long, elegant fingers.

"Give me that," she demanded, taking a step towards him. Tom looked from her to the wand with an expression of feigned surprise.

"This?" he said mildly. "You won't be needing it." His eyes flicked over her in a brief appraisal, and he lifted one brow as he waved the wand lazily. "Why don't you put some clothes on?"

Hermione caught her clothes as they flew at her, pulling on t-shirt and trousers as she fought the goosebumps that rose across her skin at the sound of his voice. It was slightly roughened with disuse but still low and melodic: the voice that had echoed through her dreams, that she had believed belonged to her best friend, to someone she _loved_ ; someone for whom she had gone to the end of the earth, into death and beyond –

"Better?" Tom asked solicitously, once she stood fully dressed, hands on hips.

"Fuck you," she spat. "You're just some sort of – you're not even fucking real."

Tom's dark brows twitched together, his head tilting quizzically. "Why would you think that?"

"Because!" Hermione scrunched her eyes shut, pressing the heels of her hands against them hard enough that she started to see stars against the black. "This has to be in my head. I can't – _you_ can't – I wouldn't have -"

"Wouldn't you?" he whispered, his voice like velvet, accompanied by the faintest brush of magic around her shoulders.

Hermione flinched back with a yelp, throwing a wandless " _Impedimenta!"_ at him out of pure instinct. The spell was strong enough to send Tom flying backwards, his body hitting the rock with a worryingly solid thud, the rowan wand rolling back towards Hermione where he had dropped it.

For a moment everything was quiet enough for Hermione to hear the quickened beat of her pulse in her ears, before Tom started to laugh, sharp and breathless. "Oh my _word_ , did you -"

"Don't move," Hermione said, grabbing her wand and training it on him as he started to push himself upright, wincing. Tom paused, slowly raising both hands in a gesture of surrender, and Hermione found herself trying to work out what was wrong with the picture in front of her. His raven-dark hair was mussed, curling damply against his forehead, his blue eyes dancing, the skin at their corners crinkling as he smiled – as he _smiled_ –

"What the fuck _are_ you?" Hermione whispered.

"What the fuck do you think I am?" he shot back with an insolent shrug. "You're the one who pulled me out of the Well. Who came all this way to bring me back from the –"

"I came for _Harry_ ," Hermione cut him off. "Not for - for _you_. I went in there for someone I -"

"Someone you loved?" Tom asked, his tone mocking, the light in his eyes going flat and cool. "Tell me then, if Harry Potter stood before you now, would you believe that _he_ was real?"

Hermione took a breath, then stopped herself. _Would she?_ There was a part of her that hadn't believed, even as she stepped into the blue-tinged water, that it could possibly work, but faced with this – this – _apparition_ – she had to admit that –

"And in any case," Tom interrupted her train of thought, shooting a look at her from beneath his dark lashes. "Even if this is in your head, why should that mean it isn't real?"

Hermione blinked, feeling a bolt of annoyance at the words; at the simplicity of the premise, so typical of wizards' infuriating logic. "I –" she started, then stopped herself, staring at him. Tom held her gaze, seeming to goad her with his solid, insistent presence.

What was it that Harry had said when he'd destroyed the diary all those years ago?

 _Blurred around the edges, like looking through a misted window –_

"You, what?" Tom said impatiently, tossing his hair out of his eyes to reveal his pale forehead, where a bright line of scarlet edged its way over his temple.

"You're bleeding," Hermione said, sounding idiotic even to herself, and Tom frowned. Unthinkingly, she had stepped towards him, had raised the hand not holding her wand, as though to touch him; as though to confirm what the wild beating of her heart had been telling her all along.

 _He's real he's real he's_

Tom's skin was warm, the blood sticky on her fingers when she skimmed them across the graze, and Hermione swallowed, her mouth dry with something that tasted like fear but was quite distinct. Tom was still, his deep blue eyes not moving from hers.

"You're real," she breathed.

"Told you," Tom said smugly. "You called, I answered."

As though the words had broken some sort of spell Hermione recoiled, dropping her hand and stumbling backwards. "How are you here?" she asked, relieved when her voice didn't tremble. "You're – _You-Know-Who_ is still alive."

"In a manner of speaking," Tom said, maddeningly insouciant. "But that's the tricky thing about splitting your soul -" his lips curving upwards "- you never know where it's going to end up."

"The horcruxes," Hermione realised. "When we destroyed the horcruxes, you died."

"Piece by piece." Tom gave her a searching look. "You understand the physics of gravity, I assume?"

Hermione nodded wordlessly, and he motioned slightly with one hand. "As each horcrux was destroyed, so that part passed into death." He gave a rueful smirk, "Seven parts, and almost whole."

 _Seven?_ asked a little voice in the back of Hermione's brain, but she chose to ignore it for now. "But I called to Harry," she said stubbornly.

Tom smirked. "Did you? Are you _sure_?"

It had been Harry's name, but the voice, the laugh, the shape of his smile, the feel of his lips –

"Fuck," she muttered. "How the _fuck_ did you get into my head?"

Tom's eyes widened in exaggerated shock. "Language," he murmured, then paused, studying her. "You actually don't know, do you?" He smiled, shaking his head slowly, "I must admit I'm almost disappointed. Most unlike Hermione Granger not to have the answers."

She opened her mouth to retort and then stopped, staring at him. "You know me," she said, watching Tom's smile broaden, his eyes glittering dangerously. "How do you know me?" Hermione whispered, taking another step back and glancing from her bloodied fingers to Tom's face.

"Isn't that a question." His face was deadpan, his voice soft, almost a purr. "And don't you think it's funny that _you_ know _me_?"

"I -" Hermione frowned in confusion. "You're Tom Riddle – you -"

"There are no pictures of me," he said. "And Harry never showed you the memories that Dumbledore gave to him."

"How do you know that?" Hermione raised her wand again, brandishing it in Tom's smiling face. "How could you _possibly_ know that?"

He leaned forward, pushing the wand aside, and Hermione's breath stuttered as she realised how much taller than her he was, even as he bent his head to whisper in her ear.

"Christmas roses."

And she _remembered_ : Harry's arm around her shoulders, the cemetery silent but for the wind.

She felt Tom's hand cup her jaw and remembered the flash of his gaze, the taste of his mouth; the feel of his hand in hers as she pulled him back towards life.

"Seven parts," Hermione breathed, staring into his eyes. "Ring, cup, diary, locket, diadem, snake and -" she broke off, searching his face in disbelief – its architecture strange and sharp but nevertheless familiar.

"And Harry Potter," Tom said quietly, his fingers ghosting down her neck. "Quite unintentional, I assure you, although it seems to have had its advantages."

"You fucker," she growled. "I came here for Harry, and you _tricked_ me, you –"

"I called you to me because I am still tied to life," Tom said flatly, and his eyes on hers were a blue deep enough to drown in. "Harry Potter is dead, because heroes _die_."

"Fuck you," Hermione spat, blinking away angry tears. " _You_ killed him, this is _your_ fault –"

"No," Tom said, his fingers closing around her arm as she tried to shove him away. " _I,_ did not kill Harry Potter. I am seven pieces of a soul, and the _thing_ that killed him is but one."

Hermione blinked, shocked into silence, and Tom took a deep breath before continuing. "Do you know how you make a soul whole, when it has been severed?" he whispered, and Hermione shook her head. "You have to feel remorse," Tom said, quiet and desperate. "And I had _sixteen years_ to do it – sixteen years living inside Harry Potter, understanding the difference between fear of death and the will to _live_."

He stopped, and in the sudden quiet Hermione could hear both their ragged breathing. "Even if that's true," she said carefully, "Even if you aren't what...what you become, you're still not Harry. You still can't destroy _him_."

Something flickered in Tom's face. "I'm not Harry," he agreed quietly, releasing his grip on her arm to step away, pushing his hands through his hair in a gesture that was so familiar Hermione could have sobbed, before he turned back and fixed her with his intense gaze. "But I'm the best you've got."

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thanks for reading, you're all wonderful!_


	8. A constellation among our voices

_**A/N:** It's baaaaaaack!_

* * *

 _ **Chapter 8: A Constellation Among Our Voices**_

* * *

 _Before - 25th December 1997_

"' _The last enemy that shall be defeated is death_ ,'" Harry read, and Hermione felt his shoulder tense under her hand. "But that's - that's a Death Eater thing - why would that be written on my parents' -"

"I don't -" Hermione started, and then knelt down to his level, pulling him to face her. "It doesn't mean it the way the Death Eaters - the way _he_ does." She paused, and in the moment of silence Harry leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "I think it means...you know...living beyond death. After death. Something more."

Harry didn't say anything, but she saw his eyes go back to the grave; watched as tears fell silently down his cheeks, dropping onto the frozen ground. His mouth was a thin line, and she wanted to hug him, wanted so badly to have him, for once, feel something other than pain. She didn't; just found his hand with hers, and felt him return her fierce grip.

Finally Harry gave a choking gasp, and then took a breath so sharp it must have been painful, and Hermione bit her lip to stop her own tears, turning to follow his gaze.

The grave was so stark, so bleak under its layer of snow that suddenly she couldn't bear it, and before Hermione quite knew what she was doing she had waved her wand and conjured a wreath of Christmas roses. Harry rocked back on his heels and caught it, laying the blooms gently on the grave before pushing himself upright.

He didn't say a word as he reached a hand down to her, but when Hermione stood up he put his arm tight around her shoulders, turning his head to press a kiss into her hair as she fastened her arm around his waist.

* * *

 _Now - 31st July 2002_

"I'm not Harry." Tom's voice was soft as he stepped away from her, as he pushed his overlong hair out of his eyes - and it was so accurate it was cruel, it was terrible - "but I'm the best you've got."

"No," Hermione shook her head. "That can't be - if I can bring you back then surely I can -"

"What are you going to do?" Tom turned to face her, his mouth set in a firm line of challenge. "Return me to death and try your luck at getting Potter next time?"

"I should!" Hermione could feel the old stubborn set returning to her jaw. "If I can pull _you_ out of the Well of Souls then I'm damn sure I can -"

"And how do you plan to go about doing that?" Tom asked. "Are you really ready to kill me, Hermione Granger?"

"Why would you think I'm not?" she whispered, forgetting, in her anger, the instinct to be afraid. "You don't know what I've had to do to while you've been dead."

Tom narrowed his eyes at her, and Hermione's fingers tightened on her wand as she levelled it at him again.

"And what if this time you get neither of us?" he asked. "The Well has given once." He spread his arms wide. "Who's to say that it will answer you again?" Hermione said nothing, didn't move, and Tom's cheeks hollowed as he chewed his lip.

"Go on then," he said quietly, stepping up until her wand was pressed into the solid wall of his chest. Hermione gritted her teeth and went to twitch her wand away, but Tom was too quick, his hand rising and holding it in place.

"Do it," he hissed, his dark blue eyes boring into hers, and Hermione could feel the magic - the anger and fear and _blame_ \- rising up inside her as she returned his gaze. She could taste the bitterness of it on her tongue, feel the dark parts of her ready to shape the words _Avada Kedavra_.

 _The last enemy that shall be defeated is death_ , she remembered.

She looked into Tom's eyes: dark, fathomless blue in place of the green that she had longed for, and she couldn't make herself do it.

"I need to check on Hogwarts," she said abruptly, turning away from him.

"Hogwarts?" Tom barked after a moment. "Why would you need to -"

"Because that's where we were hiding out." Hermione flicked her wand impatiently, " _Accio_ map!"

"Hiding out?" Tom asked. "What do you mean hiding out?"

But the scrap of parchment had come hurtling out of the cave and into her hand, and Hermione ignored Tom, wasting no time spreading the map on the black rocks.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she murmured, hearing Tom scoff behind her.

The reddish outline of the castle materialised quickly, the jagged lines of ruin clear even on the plan.

Hermione held her breath, waiting for a flicker of movement, the tiny footprints with a label in Sirius's best copperplate, but there was nothing. The whole school stood abandoned.

"Fuck," she whispered. "Fucking f-"

"Why would you be _hiding_ at Hogwarts?" Tom repeated, interrupting her stream of invective, and Hermione whirled on him.

"Because it was the one place we thought they wouldn't look. Everywhere else that we went, they found us. We couldn't hide at the Burrow, we weren't safe in Godric's Hollow - you and your fucking _goons_ would show up _anywhere_ that they thought -"

"Shut up and give me that."

Tom snatched the parchment from her fingers, frowning down at the map. Hermione saw his eyes scan the castle rapidly, before he looked up at her, a crease between his dark brows.

"What the fuck is this?"

"I - what?" Hermione blinked, caught off-guard by the question.

"Who did this to the castle?" Tom glowered, the righteous indignation in his expression so jarringly familiar that Hermione almost felt nauseous.

"You did," she whispered eventually, watching as what little colour Tom's face had held drained away from it.

"Not me," he croaked, staring down at the image of the ruined castle. "I wouldn't - Hogwarts was - I would _never_."

He bunched his fist around the map, and Hermione started forward with a little cry, only for Tom to grab her by the arm, holding the parchment out of her reach. "How long have I been dead?

"Four years," she said. "But I don't see why it would -"

"Are you kidding?" Tom gaped down at her in disbelief. "I left a legilimency echo in your mind as Potter died, I thought you would - Jesus Christ, you stubborn little -"

"Don't speak to me like that!"

Hermione had her wand in his face again in a moment. Despite his grip on her arm, her hand shook with anger and strain and she realised suddenly that she was starving, that she hadn't eaten since she entered the Well, which could have been any length of time.

 _Any length of time_ \- her eyes flicked back to the Map, still scrunched in Tom's fist. Who knew how much time had passed, how much time she had already wasted arguing with - with - _whatever_ Tom was.

"The dreams didn't start until Halloween last year," she said quietly, slackening her hold on her wand and feeling Tom's grip relax. "Luna said it would have been because -"

"- the veil was thin." Tom nodded absently, "Full moon on Halloween, I should have realised." He looked down at her, and then released her abruptly as though he had only just noticed he still had hold of her arm. "But there was nothing before that?"

"Just -" Hermione frowned, trying to remember. "Just flashes," she said eventually. "I thought they were just memories, just dreams. It wasn't until that night that I started leaving myself messages."

"Messages?" he asked.

"Bits of bible verses mostly. I thought it was - it was so muggle I thought it must be Harry - that there must have been something that Dumbledore showed him. It's how I knew to come here," she said, then frowned. "Well, not exactly. It's how I knew to get answers from - from -"

"From _him?_ " Tom's expression was one of incredulity. "But I remember - so you should - what on earth _possessed_ you to do -"

" _You_ , apparently." Hermione crossed her arms defensively. "I didn't know what I was seeing, so we thought it best to get as much information as possible. It was a calculated -"

"Are you mad?" Tom cried. "Who let you - how desperate _were_ you?"

"Desperate enough to come here and jump into a magic lake in hopes that I might be able to bring back my best friend!" Hermione yelled. "Instead of which I get _you_ , you piece of -"

"Enough," Tom said, raising a hand in defeat as he turned away to squint towards the horizon and the blunt line of the distant mountain, gilded with sun. Hermione inhaled deeply, taking a moment to study him.

He was younger than any version of Tom Riddle had any right to be, appearing about her own age. When Harry had described the Riddle he had seen in the Chamber of Secrets, or in the memories that Dumbledore collected, he had always said that he was neat, almost eerily composed. But his hair was overlong, his shapeless robes tatty, and with his face turned away from her she could almost have believed -

 _You came_ , she heard him say; felt again that strange surge of elation, and a shiver of something else.

"How did you get inside my head?" she asked softly. "Why me? Why not Ron, or Ginny, or -"

His eyes caught the low sunlight as he looked back at her over his shoulder, and Hermione fell silent, feeling the press of his regard against her skin, the quickening of her blood that she told herself was fear, making her pulse a raging storm.

"You were the only one who followed," Tom said, barely a whisper, and Hermione swallowed hard, remembering the terrible look of defeat on Harry's face as he crumpled beneath the blade.

"And besides," Tom went on, his eyes never wavering from her face, "You're the only one who could understand, Hermione."

Her name on his lips had the cadence of a spell, calling her forward just as she had called him, and Tom turned towards her as Hermione reached out to rest her hand on his chest, catching the insistent beat of his heart in her palm.

"How did you survive inside Harry?" she breathed, and under her fingers she felt his heart begin to race; flagrantly alive; and Tom grimaced before taking a step back, leaving her hand raised in the empty air.

"Do you remember how he defeated Quirinus Quirrell?" he asked, and Hermione blinked, thrown by the return question, before the answer came to her.

 _Love._

Tom nodded slowly, as though she had said the word aloud. "You know what happened when Harry touched him."

There no question in his voice, and his gaze had become intent, almost imploring. Hermione recalled Harry's expression of naked horror as he recounted how Quirrell's skin had blistered and turned to ash beneath his fingers.

 _Dumbledore says it was because my mum died to protect me. Because she loved me so much it placed a spell in my skin._

And how would a slice of Tom Riddle have taken root inside Harry, so full of love that it made him a weapon, unless -

"I am the best part of myself," Tom said softly. "The only part that could survive inside a vessel like Harry Potter, when almost everything else had been carved away, one murder at a time."

He paused, his mouth twisting as he reached for her hand, hesitating a hairsbreadth away. When Hermione didn't pull back, he closed his fingers around hers and placed it back on his chest; back over that obstinate heartbeat, his eyes never leaving her own.

"The unending strangeness of magic," he whispered.

"Dumbledore said," Hermione started, and then swallowed hard, her mouth dry. "He said that you could not love - that you were incapable of it -"

"Dumbledore?" Tom's eyebrows quirked upwards in surprise. "Oh, Dumbledore thought he knew all about love, it's true. But he didn't know everything. He didn't know what it is to learn love from a distance, trapped in a body over which you have no control."

Hermione blinked at the implication of his words, and then gave into herself, lifting her other hand towards his face. Tom closed his eyes as she grazed her fingers along the angle of his jaw; feeling the shape of it that was strange and yet familiar under her touch; feeling him lean into her, and for a moment - a moment -

"You see?" he whispered. "We're bound, you and I."

"I don't -"

"Hermione." His eyes opened, endless blue, and the weight of his gaze made her words catch, tightness in her throat like a noose. Like -

 _The Hanged Man._

 _The High Priestess._

 _The Lovers._

 _Death._

Hermione swallowed again, feeling the weight of understanding settle over her memory of the cards.

"You said you felt remorse?" she asked, and this time the spasm that crossed Tom's face was one of pain.

"I suffered for what I have done," he said, his voice very low as he stared at the floor. "I - it was -"

As he paused Hermione saw the card again, the hanged man suspended by his heel, his face contorted with agony as his dark hair caught the sunlight.

"It was not something I would wish to repeat," Tom said finally.

There was a long silence, broken only by the call of a bird high overhead. Hermione closed her eyes and took a breath of the sharpening air. In her mind's eye, the priestess reached up and plucked the pomegranate, smiling all the while.

She opened her eyes, stroked her thumb through the soft hollow beneath his cheekbone.

"Will you help me?" she asked.

* * *

 ** _A/N_** _: Readers old, readers new, thank you for your patience. I can't make promises as to regularity, but hope not to keep you waiting quite so long in the future._


	9. Reflects all unclear

**_A/N:_** _This story is occupying my mind, so you get another update. Hurrah!_

* * *

 ** _Chapter 9: Reflects all unclear_**

* * *

 _Now - 31st July 2002_

"Will you help me?"

Tom's fingers tightened where they held hers against his chest, and the frown that he directed down at her was almost quizzical.

"Why else do you think I'm here?"

Hermione chewed her lip, listening to the low howl of the wind across the barren glacier as she considered the question. Tom tilted his head, and his eyes, dark as deep water, flicked down to her mouth. Against her palm, his heart raced to match her own.

"Hermione." She felt the hitch in his breath as he said her name, and with shake of her head Hermione stepped back, freeing herself of the trance of his touch.

He was _Tom Riddle_ , she reminded herself. Tom Riddle who, for all that he claimed he regretted it, had been Voldemort; had destroyed everything she'd ever loved.

 _Not me_ , he'd said. _Not me_.

She glanced up at him quickly, and though the low sun made it difficult to see she could have sworn that his face twitched, his expression almost hurt.

"You'll help," she said, wiping her suddenly sweaty palms on her top. "Good - that's - that's good."

He watched her for a moment, his whole body locked in predatory stillness. "What is it that I'll be helping you with?"

"We -" Hermione paused, biting her lip as she looked at him. "Harry was the only one who could defeat him - you - whatever," she waved her hand impatiently when Tom made as though to speak. "But we have to try - we have to _try_ \- I can't have come this far for nothing, I can't, I have to keep fighting, I promised, I _promised_ -"

 _I'll never stop fighting him_ , she heard herself say, long ago. Tom was still watching her, quiet and patient, and with the sun behind him she remembered the dream; remembered wondering at the words when she had thought it was Harry who spoke.

 _Revenge is something you take._

"I can't ever stop," she whispered. "Even if the only thing I can win is that Harry isn't forgotten."

"So honourable," Tom said, the curl of his lip just the right side of mocking. He tipped his head to one side and considered her thoughtfully. "History is written by the victors, you know."

The twist of his mouth bloomed into a smile as he spoke: a smile that was beautiful and terrible and that made heat rush to Hermione's cheeks even as her better judgement whispered to her that she was in a great deal of trouble.

 _Revenge is something you take._ How could she ever have mistaken him for Harry?

"Well then," she muttered bitterly, relieved when her voice didn't shake. "At least that's one piece of work I don't have to do for everyone."

Tom opened his mouth and then closed it, pressing his palms together and lifting his fingers to his lips as he stared at her over the top of them. "I don't think that you've lost quite yet."

Hermione laughed darkly. "And I think I've brought you back from the dead half-cracked."

"Incorrect." Tom shook his head slowly from side to side. "You're still fighting, and that must be proof of something."

There was a pause while they stared at one another before Tom's smile returned, smaller and more secret. "You know what they say," he said softly, "about battles, and wars."

* * *

 _Before - October 8th 1998_

"If you don't come now then there's no guarantee -"

"We know the consequences." Molly's voice was firm, her expression stoic as she avoided her eldest son's eye, choosing instead to look at Andromeda, who lifted her chin.

"There will always be a place for you with us, if you are able to escape." She paused and looked up at the sky, the bare branches of the apple trees casting shifting shadows across her imperious features. "Though I hope," she continued quietly, "that it will be we who return to you."

Molly nodded, and Hermione caught the gleam of tears in her eyes.

"A war is no place to raise a child," was all she said before she turned away, and Bill's scarred face creased with pain, even as his arm tightened around Fleur's shoulders.

"Good luck, all of you," Arthur said, stepping forward to shake his son's hand and press a kiss to Fleur's cheek.

"Thanks Dad."

Bill's eyes lingered on his mother for a long moment. "Mum, you wouldn't let us fight until we were old enough to choose it, and I just -"

"Don't." Molly had turned back, and now the expression on her face was fierce, furious.

 _She looks like Ginny_ , Hermione realised.

"You take yourselves as far from here as you can get, and you raise your children _safe_ , and you forget this, you leave this behind you, and you never - you never -"

"Molls," Arthur said, catching her arm gently and pulling her against him. "They know, Molls."

"We know, Molly," Fleur agreed, her hand tightening protectively over the gentle swell beneath her robes. "Bill is not ze only one who cares for 'is family."

"We should go," Blaise said, eyeing the darkening sky. "Last chance for anyone who wants to come with us."

He glanced around the small gathering, though he remained turned slightly towards Ginny. Hermione watched as the other girl looked away, her hands balled tight by her sides, and sighed before stepping forward to say a goodbye to Teddy.

"Be good, little man," she whispered, stroking a finger across his soft cheek where his head rested on Andromeda's shoulder.

"This life will be harder for you than for the others," Andromeda said quietly, and Hermione glanced up at her, frowning.

"What do you mean?"

"Losing a part of yourself changes you." Andromeda's hand was gentle on Hermione's shoulder. "Take it from someone whose life seems to have been shaped by loss."

She looked down at the sleeping baby. "You have to find a way to move forward."

"I'm going to fight him," Hermione said. "I'll never stop fighting him, until he's paid for what he did to us, to all of us, to Har-"

His name caught in her throat and Hermione blinked at the sudden appearance of tears in her eyes.

"Every day that you survive this you are fighting him," Andromeda said, after a moment's silence. "You are the proof that he has not won, that he _will not_ win."

Hermione looked up with a watery smile, to meet Andromeda's gaze; the same ghost-grey as Sirius's. "We'll miss you," she said, her voice breaking slightly over the words, and Andromeda took her hand, her slim fingers gripping tightly.

"However you choose to mourn, it is not weakness to do so," she whispered, and Hermione frowned as a light weight settled in her palm.

"Do not let this fall into the wrong hands," Andromeda's words were barely audible as she closed Hermione's fingers over the small object. "It will be no use to you unless you can cross the border wards, but if ever you do -"

"Thank you."

"Now!" Blaise called, and Andromeda stepped hurriedly away, swiping at her face with her free hand.

Hermione looked hurriedly between them, trying to commit faces to memory - Bill and Fleur, Dean and Seamus, Andromeda, Teddy and Blaise.

"Goodbye!" Luna called suddenly, her voice sounding strangely childlike in the autumn evening, and then in a flash of blue light they were gone.

Ginny made a choked noise and turned on her heel to stomp out of the orchard. Molly followed after her, wringing her hands in the apron that she still wore, in spite of everything.

One by one the others trickled away, Ron leaving with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder, until finally Hermione stood alone in the gathering dusk, her hand still closed tightly. Finally, when she heard the call of an owl and the chatter of the gnomes in hedgerow, she opened her fingers.

At first she thought the small circular object was a watch, but when she pressed the button at the top the weathered brass face flicked open to reveal a compass. The mother-of-pearl face shone gently in the moonlight, and Hermione could just make out the way the dial spun lazily, not settling.

She closed it, frowning, and turned it over in her hands. Faint letters were engraved on the back, and she held it up to the moonlight before sighing and rummaging for her wand.

" _Lumos."_

"' _I carry your heart_ ,'" she murmured aloud, drawing her thumb gently across the entwined initials beneath the quote.

 _ET & AB._

Turning it over she flicked it open once again, watching the dial revolve gently.

* * *

 _Now_

After Tom's cryptic pronouncement they had lapsed into an uneasy silence, maintaining a careful distance from one another as Hermione sorted through the contents of her beaded bag once more. It was becoming an almost compulsive response to upheaval, but even if she had been able to stop herself she wouldn't have. Anything to avoid looking at Tom; to avoid meeting the demand of his gaze, of his smile.

He had sat quietly, apparently content to wait for her to sort herself out. When Hermione had wordlessly tossed him the set of Harry's spare clothes that she had been carrying around with her for years - a strangely twisted memorial - Tom had taken them without comment, disappearing back into the cave to change.

She had only peeked over her shoulder once, long enough to be struck by the lines of Tom's back, lean muscle shifting beneath his pale skin as he stripped out of the strange grey robes that he had been wearing. The shape of him made Hermione's hands tremble, made her skin prickle with want; and it shouldn't have made sense, it shouldn't have felt right, except that it suddenly threw every moment, every odd look that Harry had thrown her, when he hadn't seemed to be quite there, into sharp relief.

 _We're bound, you and I._

Hermione gnawed her lip as she sifted through her meagre possessions, worrying at questions that she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to until a dull, thudding pain started to emerge at her temples.

It took a great deal of magic for the part of a soul that had been trapped in a horcrux to take physical form, she knew, and while it was true that the Well practically hummed with power, how was it that _six_ parts could -

"Is it your intention to stay here forever?"

Hermione jumped, her hand instinctively closing over the compass that she had just pulled from her bag. She wasn't sure why she had kept it hidden from the others all this time, but it was hard to suppress four years' force of habit.

Tom quirked a brow upwards but said nothing, and Hermione wavered a moment, taking in the strangeness of him dressed in Harry's old clothes; the striking physical similarity between them.

Except that Harry would have fidgeted under her scrutiny, whereas Tom only gave her a small smile. And she knew that it had never been Harry who had made her feel like this.

Hermione sighed, unwilling to worsen her headache by pondering the strangeness any further. When she opened her palm to show him the compass Tom's only reaction was to let his eyebrow climb higher up his forehead. "May I ask what you've got there?"

"Obviously it's a compass," she said impatiently, ignoring his glare and moving her thumb to flick at the catch. She felt a quiver of anticipation as the lid lifted, unsure what to expect; what to even hope for.

After so many nights watching its slow revolutions it was almost a shock to see that the dial was still; the red arrow pointing unerringly in a direction that Hermione judged to be approximately south-east. She glanced up, smiling with excitement, to see that Tom was watching her. When she caught him staring his cheeks pinked slightly, and he looked back at the compass, his eyes narrowing as he studied it.

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, that isn't pointing due north."

"No," Hermione said. "No, I think it's pointing to - to -"

Her excitement at the thought of seeing Andromeda, of seeing all the others and maybe - hopefully - finding some answers as to what had happened at Hogwarts - drained away as she realised the impossibility of turning up with _Tom Riddle_ at her side.

She looked away, towards the horizon where the sunlight had diminished to a sickly glow - probably as close to full night as they were going to get this far north. Overhead the sky was the colour of a black pearl: bruised purple striated by glistening bands of green. Ordinarily Hermione would have been mesmerised by the flicker of luminous colour against the undark night, but her attention was caught up in the sour taste on her tongue, the sleep-deprived jitter of her nerves, and the quiet, watchful presence of the man before her.

"It's pointing towards friends," she said eventually.

"Ah," Tom sighed. "And friends of yours will not be -"

"You said you'd help?" Hermione blurted, rounding on him before he could finish whatever he was going to say, and Tom scowled at her.

"I did, and I intend to. You'll have to trust me at some point."

Hermione gave a little snort, muttering as she looked back down at the compass in her hand. "I don't know whether you've noticed that you're _Tom R-_ "

"Tom Riddle, yes, _not_ Vol-"

"Don't say his name!" Hermione cried, leaping forward to clap her spare hand over his mouth, the compass clattering to the floor.

Tom's breath was hot on her hand, his eyes wide and surprised above her fingers.

"The taboo," Hermione said quietly, watching as the crease between Tom's dark brows smoothed with understanding. "They never lifted it."

He made a 'hmming' noise against her palm and Hermione felt heat flare up the back of her neck and down through her stomach. She jerked her hand away as though burned and made to step back, but found herself held in place, Tom's fingers splayed possessively against her spine.

"Let me go," Hermione whispered, unsure whether or not she meant it. Tom's hand didn't move.

"I am not him," he murmured. "I came to your call, I will stand at your side."

He leaned forward as he spoke, and Hermione's chin tipped upwards until she could feel his words dancing against her mouth.

"Who among your friends will know Tom Riddle from the Dark Lord?" Tom's voice was a purr, his words and his touch a hypnotic cocktail that had Hermione shaking her head in an effort to clear her thoughts.

"Ginny," she said, shakily. "Andromeda - I think, Esmeranda Zabini -"

"Then you explain," Tom shrugged as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking at the lobe. "You tell them the truth."

They stood frozen for a long moment, caught in a not-quite embrace. Hermione could feel the way that Tom's ribs expanded against hers as he drew a breath. She watched the dance of green and purple light reflected in his eyes, and swallowed.

"OK," she said. "Alright. We'll leave in the morning."

* * *

 _**A/N:** Eep. For **sunset oasis** \- your reviews have been an endless source of delight this week._


	10. Framed by the reluctant hour

**_Chapter 10: Framed by the reluctant hour_**

* * *

 _1st August 2002 - Mykines, Faroe Islands_

The scattering of houses that comprised the village clung to the windswept coastline, stark against the verdant landscape. Hermione scowled at the back of Tom's shining raven-haired head as she followed him up the stony path towards the neat, grass-roofed house that a hiker they'd encountered on the path down from the cliff had indicated as a bed and breakfast

She had been too distracted by the odd twisting sensation in her mouth as the translation charm took hold to make much of the hiker's quizzical look as she'd made her enquiry, but the man had cast her another odd glance before he started up the path, and Hermione had frowned, thrown by his suspicious demeanour, until Tom sniffed pointedly beside her.

"Your translation charm's too good."

"I don't know what you -"

"The accent and dialect modifications. They were completely unnecessary. Now you speak like a local in a place that has a population of -" he had paused, scanning the small clutch of houses "- fifty, at most."

Hermione had winced, realising the truth of what he said and feeling a rush of humiliation. "I just -"

"You didn't think, is what you did." Tom hadn't looked at her as he spoke, concentrating on picking his way down the narrow path. "You're too eager to prove how bloody clever you are, and it makes you rash."

Hermione had bridled at the accusation, nearly losing her footing and deepening her humiliation when Tom had grabbed her by the sleeve to keep her from toppling over. "I don't -"

"I already know you're clever," he'd growled. "But you need to be smart as well. Start by watching where you put your feet, it would be a crying shame if you were to successfully apparate us 300 miles only to die falling into a puffin nest."

Tom rapped smartly on the painted door and Hermione tried to swallow her renewed apprehension as trying to summon a blithe smile as they heard heavy footsteps approaching from inside. "Let me do the talking," Tom murmured from the side of his mouth, just before the door flew open to reveal a weatherbeaten man whose face was patterned with deep lines. Beneath thick, silvery brows his eyes were startlingly pale. "May I help you?"

Hermione jumped slightly, her smile faltering as Tom placed one hand on her shoulder, holding his other hand out to the man, who took it hesitantly. "My, ah, _wife_ and I missed the flight to Vágar this morning," he said, giving a half-shrug and a little jerk of his head in Hermione's direction that she suspected communicated nothing flattering. "We camped last night, but we were wondering if you might have a room?" He let his smile widen slightly, "We'd rather not spend another night under canvas."

He spoke with the smoothly neutral Danish accent that was the translation charm's default, wizardkind seemingly not troubling themselves to keep up with the political developments of the muggle world. The man frowned slightly, and then leaned out of the door to squint at the pearl-grey sky. "I could see why if you camped last night."

Tom gave a charming chuckle. "Indeed. Quite right. Could you help us out?"

The man ran his eyes over them once again, visibly considering them. "You don't look like you'd survive another night in the open," he remarked. Hermione was relieved that they'd had the foresight to pull on the rucksacks she kept stuffed full of clothes in her beaded bag. She saw the man's pale eyes twinkle as he looked at her again. "Your _wife_ looks quite done-in, so I guess you'd better come inside."

"Very kind." Tom smiled as he stepped forward, though Hermione could see that it had acquired a cooler edge, and his fingers had tightened possessively on her shoulder.

"I must say," Tom went on once they had closed the door behind them, "you live in a beautiful part of the world." His eyes flicked around the picturesque interior of the bed and breakfast as he spoke, and the man nodded his agreement before he began rummaging in a pile of papers.

"Wife?" Hermione hissed as she slowly took stock of their new environs, noting the cheerful fire flickering in the grate and the proliferation of knitted blankets and cushion covers. She wasn't surprised the man had noted her tiredness; the apparition was taking its toll, and she felt almost woozy with fatigue.

"Can't be too careful," Tom murmured blithely as the man finally found the receipt book that he had apparently been looking for and turned back to them.

"It's three hundred kroner for bed and breakfast," he said. "But for three hundred and fifty you can have dinner as well?"

"Wonderful," Tom said. "If you would, _darling_."

Hermione hid her scowl and fished in her pocket for some banknotes, surreptitiously sliding her wand forward in her sleeve to transfigure them. The momentary headrush left her blinking dazedly, and for a moment she was almost glad of Tom's hand on her shoulder, holding her upright.

The man nodded when she placed the correct amount in his hand, and held up a finger to tell them to wait before disappearing through a low doorway.

"Remind me again why we couldn't find a wizarding hostel?" Tom asked softly. His mouth was very close to her ear, and Hermione felt her eyes flutter briefly closed before she got hold of herself and shook him off.

"Because I don't know the political relationship with Britain and I don't want to stir up any -"

"Here we are!" Hermione quieted abruptly and pasted a ridiculous smile onto her face as their host strode back into the room, a rangy sheepdog trotting at his heels. "Room is the first door on the right up those stairs there, and bathroom is the second doorway."

All of the man's initial hostility seemed to have dissipated as he held out a key with a heavy wooden tag attached. The dog perched on its haunches and cocked its head as it gazed at the pair of them. "Now," said the man, glancing between them. "I'm Mikkjal and this," he gestured to the dog at his side, who huffed good-naturedly, "is Petur. What are your names?"

"I -" started Hermione, but Tom wrapped his arm around her shoulders again in spite of her earlier protest, and pulled her tight against his side.

"I'm Tomas," he smiled his easy, confident grin. "This is Helga."

Hermione struggled to keep her smile bright as Mikkjal clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Supper will be at seven, so you have a few hours to make yourselves comfortable in your room."

Turning towards the stairs, Hermione just caught the edge of the wink that the man sent Tom's way, and resisted the impulse to growl.

Upstairs she pulled off her rucksack, dropping it to the floor and rounding on Tom as he closed the door behind them. "Helga?!"

His dark blue eyes widened guilelessly. "'Hermione' doesn't sound particularly Danish, which I assumed was what we were aiming for." She watched as the edge of his mouth pinched into the barest of upward curves. "I would have thought you'd be glad I'm good at improvisation." His eyes gleamed. "After all, it was never really your strong suit."

"Fine." Unwilling to argue after the earlier humiliation with the translation charm, Hermione blew out a breath and turned away to survey the room more closely. The wood-panelled walls shone in the light from an electric lamp, and the snug proportions made it feel cosy and blessedly warm, given that despite the fact of its being August the weather was decidedly chilly.

The bed sat under the window in the middle of the small room, deceptively innocent under its neat, quaintly patterned quilt. Hermione could feel heat rising up her neck to spread across her cheeks as she noted the small size, and the memory of Mikkjal's wink and everything it had suggested sprang to mind.

She cleared her throat and gave her head a shake before she sat down at the end of the bed and glared at Tom again. "You're sleeping on the floor."

He was silent for a moment, watching her with an impenetrable expression. "Very well," he nodded eventually, shedding his own rucksack before flopping himself carelessly onto the quilt and closing his eyes. Hermione, bounced upwards by his action, felt her heart ache as the nonchalance filled her with unexpected memories of Harry, even as she spluttered crossly.

"What did I just -"

"I will sleep wherever you bid me tonight." Tom held up a finger without opening his eyes. "But it has been a very long time since I lay on a bed, not to mention it's been rather a long day of travelling, so you will forgive me if I take a moment to enjoy this."

Hermione heard the click as she closed her mouth on a return argument, knowing that it would be petty of her. Instead she fished in her pocket for the compass, studying the dial which still pointed unerringly southwest.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been staring at it before she became aware of Tom's eyes on her, and glanced over her shoulder to meet his inexorable gaze where he had propped himself up on one arm.

"Let me look?"

He sounded so innocent, so curious, that Hermione found herself offering the compass to him before she had quite processed the action. Tom pushed himself to sit as he took it from her hand, and as though the movement were born of a reflex she found herself turning towards him, shifting so that her legs were drawn up onto the bed.

Tom rotated the compass in his palm, his face so expressionless that his pale features might have been carved from stone as he watched the unwavering line of the dial, before he turned the compass over to read the inscription on the back, and gave an abrupt huff of laughter. "Andromeda Black," he murmured, before his eyes lifted to meet Hermione's and he tossed the compass back to her.

She could taste copper on her tongue where she had chewed her lip, and somehow the flavour matched the feel of his eyes on her skin. "How did you know?"

"Cummings," Tom remarked, nodding at the compass that Hermione's fist had closed around. "She's as sentimental as her sisters."

"I wouldn't describe Bellatrix as sentimental," Hermione said, unthinking, and Tom gave a sharp bark of laughter.

"You just didn't know her that well," he said, eyes glittering as he reached for her arm, his hand sliding over her bare skin where she had pushed up the sleeve of her jumper. He made a slight humming sound as he stroked his thumb along the faint blue lines of the veins on her wrist, as gentle as Bellatrix had been harsh when she had held her down on the floor in the ballroom of Malfoy Manor.

Hermione shuddered, a shiver of what she told herself was revulsion radiating outwards from his touch. It was the first time he had touched her skin since they set out from Skaftafell in the early hours of the morning, and Hermione's breath stuttered at the sensation. She had the sudden, distinct impression that she was merely a puppet, suspended on the strings of his attention, and she snatched her arm away.

"So what if Cummings is sentimental?" she asked, struggling to regain her equilibrium. "I doubt you know any poetry at all."

"'Stars stand in images above'," Tom murmured, so quietly that Hermione was uncertain whether she had heard him properly; certainly she couldn't place the words. Abruptly he sat back, looking at her with what she could almost believe was concern. "You need rest more than I do," he said. "It's another long apparition to get to mainland Europe, though I really think we should discuss -"

"I told you, I'm not letting you apparate us," Hermione said tiredly. She could no longer deny the fact of her exhaustion, the sort of bone-tired drain that she had forgotten came with long-distance apparition. If she hadn't been so afraid of a portkey being traced she would have happily enchanted one; as it was they were going to be stuck making a piecemeal journey following the direction indicated by Andromeda's _sentimental_ compass.

Hermione sighed and allowed herself to stretch out on the bed, careful to maintain her distance from Tom. She was so _tired_ ; all she wanted to do was rest, but it seemed that even that might be too much to ask, because how she was supposed to fall asleep in the same room as _him_?

The constant awareness of Tom's presence made her feel as though every nerve ending was electrified. At least now it seemed that the never-ending adrenalin buzz - _fight flight fight flight_ \- was finally giving way, though she could feel the incipient thud at her temples that promised a pounding headache would be left in its wake.

She felt the bed shift as Tom got up, and heard him rummaging in one of the rucksacks before something cool was pressed into the hand that wasn't clenched tightly around the compass.

"Headache tonic," Tom said when she opened her eyes and frowned at him. "You were doing your -" he gestured at his own face "- _scrunchy_ thing, and I assumed you wouldn't be travelling without some."

Hermione stared at him for a moment, watching the way that his mouth tightened as he read her surprise. "I told you," he said, very quietly. "I _remember_."

Wordlessly she closed her hand around the tonic, trying not to notice how his fingers brushed hers.

 **oOo**

She was running through the Forbidden Forest, the way that she had run only once before, only this time she knew that it was _towards_ not _away from_ , and overhead it was dark, whereas she knew before ( _before_ ) it had been dawn.

The clearing was up ahead, and as she approached she saw something move; saw moonlight glance off a curve - the edge of his glasses, she thought, as she fought her way through the brambles.

"Hermione," Harry smiled, turning towards her, hands outstretched, and it was only then that she realised it wasn't his glasses that shone but an edge of bleached bone, exposed skull gleaming, and suddenly there were skulls all around her, laughing death's heads everywhere, and she was falling, falling through the flurry of cards and screaming - _screaming_ -

 **oOo**

There was a knock on the door, and Hermione sat bolt upright, her mouth open in a silent scream of terror as her hands scrabbled in the emptiness of the other half of the bed, reaching for - for -

"Supper!" Mikkjal's jovial voice called from the hallway, followed by a series of heavy thumps as he descended the stairs, and Hermione pushed herself upright, trying to regain her sense of reality.

"It was a dream," she whispered to herself between gulps of air. "Just a dream - just a dream - just a -"

The door opened and she sprang to her feet in alarm, wand out and pointing into Tom's shocked face.

He ran his eyes over her quickly, checking for injuries, before making a split-second survey of the room, ending on the closed window. Slowly, keeping his hands up, he stepped into the room.

"Easy," Tom said, as he nudged the door closed behind him with his hip. His voice was low and even, much as you would speak to a frightened animal. "It's alright."

Hermione heard herself give a choked sob as he gently folded his fingers around the wand, lowering their joined hands and walking her backwards until she sat on the edge of the bed. "What happened?"

"It was just a dream," she whispered. "Just a dream."

As usual, Tom said nothing. He inhabited silence with an ease that Harry never had, she realised, and at the thought of Harry, the Harry that she had seen in her sleep, she felt a sob trying to rise up from beneath her ribs.

"A nightmare," she corrected herself. "But - but not real." The quavering note of doubt in her voice was all that was needed to start her shaking again.

"It wasn't the way you dreamed of me?" Tom asked, and she shook her head.

"No. Different. Not as - as real, but still not - not -"

"Not quite _not_ real?"

When she opened her eyes his were sharp and calculating, and Hermione felt a prickle of unease that had less to do with the dream and more to do with his proximity. His hands rested either side of her hips, one still covering her own where she gripped her wand.

"I can tell Mikkjal that you're unwell?"

His tone was solicitous but he was still giving her that same shrewd look, and Hermione blinked, unable to hold his gaze. "No," she managed, gritting her teeth. "No, I'm fine."

"Good." Tom nodded, standing fluidly and pulling down the sleeves of his jumper that Hermione hadn't noticed until then had been pushed to his elbows, exposing the unblemished skin of his forearms. "Mikkjal's made some sort of fish stew that actually smells rather delicious, and will certainly be better than another handful of raisins from that bloody purse of yours."

"Yes," Hermione answered vaguely, unthinkingly taking the hand that he extended to help her up, and feeling the shock of his strong grip as he pulled her to her feet. "I mean, no, you don't have to be so rude, you -"

"Fine," Tom said. "Are we going down, or not?"

Hermione shot him a glare that already felt as though it was becoming customary and stalked past him out of the room and down the stairs, ignoring what she was fairly sure was a faint snicker of laughter from behind her.

She didn't see the wary glance that Tom threw around the room before he followed her out.

 **oOo**

Dinner had been, as Tom had predicted, delicious and though Hermione was loth to admit it to him fish stew with potatoes really _was_ a significant improvement on nuts and dried fruit.

She had felt Tom's eyes on her through the meal, even as he complimented Mikkjal on his cooking and laughed heartily, glowing with charm, at a joke about bachelors having hidden talents.

Petur sat close by his master's chair as they ate, his dark eyes moving between her and Tom. His hackles weren't quite up, but it was clear that the dog was made uneasy by their presence, and Hermione realised suddenly that she had never seen any wizard with a dog.

"What's got into you, eh?" Mikkjal asked, reaching down to rub Petur's ears, and then rolling his eyes as he sat up. "He's used to having strangers for dinner, silly thing. He can probably just smell the magic on you."

Hermione froze with her spoon halfway to her mouth. Beside her she could see Tom continuing to butter a slice of dark bread, apparently unconcerned. "Magic?" she asked, her voice squeaking over the word.

"Oh yes," Mikkjal nodded. "Camping out under the lights, this time of year? I'm surprised you didn't see any elves." He nodded out towards the dark bulk of the hill, visible against the evening twilight. "They like the hills." He stared into the distance for a moment, then smiled broadly. "Either that or Petur just doesn't like whatever fancy shampoo it is you young folk are using."

Hermione forced herself to laugh along with Tom, but she could hear the nervous edge in it that wasn't made any better when he placed his hand over hers, gripping tightly as though to tell her to calm down.

Shortly after clearing the plates, Mikkjal announced that he was going to bed - "Fish are early risers!" - and they were to make themselves at home as they pleased.

"I think we'll follow your lead," Tom said, standing and stretching his arms. Mikkjal laughed and waved over his shoulder as he strode to the back door to put Petur out for the night.

"After you," Tom smiled, and Hermione tossed her head before climbing the stairs. Tom followed her, pausing slightly when they reached the bedroom door.

Hermione threw him a questioning look over her shoulder, to see that he was glancing off to the side. In the dim electric light, his cheeks might almost have been pink. "Do you want a chance to -"

"You've seen pretty much everything already," she sighed. "Just turn your back."

Tom nodded, following her through the door and then turning towards it once it was closed. Hermione stripped quickly, forgoing a shower in favour of a perfunctory freshening charm. That it tired her out again told her that her magic had still not fully recovered, and she felt unease coiling in her stomach at the thought of apparating to Shetland in the morning.

She cleared her throat once she was done, and Tom turned to face her, making a quick inventory of her practical flannel pyjamas and then raising a sardonic eyebrow. "I guess I'll just make myself comfortable on the floor then."

"No!"

The word was out before she had even thought, and Hermione saw a gratifying flash of surprise on Tom's face even as she felt herself blush scarlet. "No," she went on more quietly. "I don't - I'm - it's -"

"It wasn't just a dream, was it?"

"It was, but it was _Harry_." Hermione shook her head, trying to blink away tears. "He was - he was dead and I -"

Tom watched her for a long moment, and then his mouth set into a grim line. "Remember that night in the Brecons?" he asked, and Hermione blinked, startled.

"That wasn't y-"

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you: I was _there_ ," he said impatiently. "Do you remember or not?"

 _She'd been crying again, harsh, wrenching sobs that she tried to muffle in her pillow, but Harry had heard, and he had come across to her bed and lain on top of the quilt and wrapped his arms around her, saying nothing, just holding her until she quieted; until she fell asleep._

 _They had been facing one another when she woke in the morning, and she had taken a moment to examine the care that had marked his thin face, the shadow where he needed a shave. They weren't children any more, and it was as though it had taken until that moment for her to see it - to see him -_

Hermione swallowed. "I remember," she nodded.

"Then get in the bed," Tom said, and she found herself moving, unquestioning, pulling the blankets over herself and burying her head in the pillow. The mattress squeaked as Tom lay down behind her, on top of the quilt just as he - as _Harry_ \- had done, all those years ago.

"Go to sleep," he murmured as his arm circled her waist, the weight of it grounding her to the bed. "You're no use to anyone if you don't."

"My god, Tom," Hermione murmured sleepily. "That was almost _sentimental_ of you."

She didn't expect him to reply, instead feeling herself sinking under the weight of her tiredness that pressed downwards upon her with far more insistence than Tom's arm.

When she was almost asleep she felt him shift minutely behind her, and then heard the words that he spoke, so softly he must have thought that she was already unconscious. "In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten." He made a quiet humming noise, his breath tickling the back of her neck, "Give me your mouth to soften, love; ah, your hair is all in idleness."

It was as though she could feel the way his lips lifted, his mouth moving against her hair, and Hermione smiled involuntarily, slipping into sleep.

She saw it only a moment; the very cusp of a dream: grey lips peeling back from bone in an unnerving, cheshire-cat smile.

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Tom quotes Rainer Maria Rilke's 'What Survives'. Thank you for reading!_


	11. The path and the turning

**_Chapter 11: The path and the turning_**

* * *

 _2nd August 2002 - Mykines, Faroe Islands_

By the time Hermione woke up Tom was gone from the bed. The sheets were pulled tight behind her back, the pillow smooth and plump; the only indication that he had ever lain there was the faint warmth that lingered when she pressed her hand into the quilt. That, and the little knot of tighter curls at the nape of her neck, where his breath must have stirred her hair as they slept.

Hermione tried not to think about this - the closeness, the intimacy of it - as she dressed. She tried not to think about the poem that he had whispered to her, or how terribly, horribly safe she had felt with his arm around her.

He wasn't Harry, she reminded herself. And she shouldn't treat him like he was.

Once she was dressed she made her way downstairs to find him stood outside on the porch, his eyes on the heavy sky. Tom didn't look at her when she stepped out to join him, but offered her his own half-drunk mug of tea to sip from. It was so exactly what Harry or Ron would have done that Hermione had half-raised it to her lips before she remembered her resolution and grimaced, handing it back to him.

Tom's lips twitched slightly, and when he cut his gaze to her his eyes gave a dangerous glitter. A whisper of some half-remembered nonsense about loving cups that she had once overheard Parvati and Lavender giggling about made Hermione suddenly very glad that she had not accepted the drink.

She half-expected him to make some sort of sardonic comment as he took the mug from her hand, but all that Tom said was, "We should go before that hits," nodding towards the glowering horizon. Hermione, with no inclination to argue, stuttered a faint assent and followed him inside, watching as he took the mug and, still lacking a wand, rinsed it by hand in the large ceramic sink.

There was something strange about the picture: Tom's methodical movements as he reached for a teatowel and dried the mug were so practised, so domesticated; so entirely lacking in magic. There seemed to be some sort of fundamental disconnect between what she was seeing and what she _should_ see, and Hermione frowned until Tom glanced over his shoulder as he replaced the mug on a shelf and caught her looking at him.

When his gaze met hers his eyes glittered again, and suddenly he was nothing _but_ magic: magic that crowded the small space and caught in her lungs and fizzed on her skin and tasted like salt water and fresh parchment and sharp winter air and -

Tom took a step towards her, and Hermione stumbled back, her hand feeling for the doorknob behind her, but he held up his empty hands and paused in his advance, his eyes not moving from her face.

"Stop it," Hermione said, although she wasn't sure what, exactly, she was telling him to stop, and Tom had the temerity to laugh at her.

"Stop what?" he asked, voice low and smoky and wonderful and _awful_ , and Hermione levelled her wand at him.

"Stop this - this - whatever it is that you're - you're not -"

"He loved you, you know."

The statement seemed apropos of nothing, entirely out of left field, and Hermione frowned, and shook her head. "What do you mean -"

"You were the only one who never abandoned him, who never turned away, and he _loved_ you, but you wouldn't see -"

"Shut _up_." Her voice broke over the second word, her knees buckling as she threw her hand out to the side to try and catch herself, except Tom was there - his hands under her shoulders, his mouth at the soft hollow where her cheek slid towards her ear.

"It's alright - I've got you - you don't -"

"Let me go," Hermione growled, her anger abrupt and dreadful as she shoved him away, and Tom lurched back as she steadied herself on the counter, his eyes widening into an expression of shock that he quickly mastered, assuming once more his mask of mocking impassivity.

Hermione stared at her hands splayed on the countertop, counting her breaths and trying to master the bolt of fury. How dare he.

How _dare_ he.

Her eyes tracked the spray of scars across her knuckles, the light freckles marking the thin skin that stretched tight across the bones; and he was not Harry, and he could never be Harry, and she had brought him back nonetheless.

"You're not him," she managed to grind out shakily. "You're not him, so stop -"

" _I_ loved you, then," Tom said, and while the words were blunt his voice was sharp enough to cut her to the bone.

"Fuck off," Hermione bit out, as vicious as he was cruel. "You wouldn't know the first thing about it."

The charge in the air fell away as abruptly as though she had slapped him, and Hermione took a deep breath, feeling her heart rate start to climb down. She didn't dare look at Tom, but instead turned away towards the door, pausing briefly to write a quick, innocuous note of thanks in Mikkjal's guestbook before she grabbed her rucksack and set off in the direction of the hill.

She didn't need to check whether he had followed her; she could hear the quiet crunch of his boots on the loose gravel.

Could feel his gaze burning into the back of her neck, all the way up the wind-whipped path.

 **oOo**

The worst part about the apparation to Lerwick wasn't that she had to touch him: it was how very much she wanted to.

The necessity of skin contact in order to make a side-along work had always seemed such an innocuous thing; she had never given any thought to grabbing Harry's hand, or Ron's, or even Draco or Theo's in latter years.

But it seemed to her for a moment, standing at the the top of the hill, with the storm clouds lowering and the puffins calling out all around, that to take Tom's hand would be like touching lightning, or fire; something wounding and terrible.

His face was shuttered when she chanced a look up at him, blank of all expression except the slightest tightening at the corners of his mouth. Hermione huffed a sigh and looked around them. She would have been grateful, in the moment, for the excuse of nearby muggles, the chance of their being seen; but of course she had cast muggle-repelling charms already, and he was just standing there _waiting_ for her, with his unreadable face and his stiff posture and his hand held out for her to take, as though it was such a very small thing to do.

"Why are you afraid?"

She could have pretended not to hear him: he spoke softly, and the stormfront had whipped the air into a frenzy. Hermione's hair tried to wrench itself free of her ponytail, curls dancing in the air between them, and strands of Tom's own overlong mop twisted and coiled across his forehead, the ends dropping into his eyes, and still he didn't look away.

"None of this is what I thought it would be," Hermione admitted, and she did take his hand then, tracing the strong, unbroken lines on his palm as she held his gaze. "You're supposed to be the nightmare; the monster; but you're not - you're -"

For once Hermione found that she didn't quite have the words to describe the strangeness of him: how she felt at once so safe and yet so horribly exposed in his presence.

"Am I not?" Tom asked, with a cruel twist to his mouth as his fingers closed around hers and he drew her close to him. "You've made it quite clear that you don't believe me capable of change."

Hermione could feel her blood starting to rise again; could feel that choking sensation that was half fear and half something else that made her want to run away; that made her want to close the final breath of distance between them. "I don't -"

"No need to look under the bed, is there," Tom smiled ruthlessly at her, "if the monster's right here?"

Hermione tightened her grip on the wand in her pocket. His teeth caught the thin dazzle of sunlight that had managed to make its way between the purpling clouds, and bit it into shining fragments.

"You're not -" she whispered, and then caught herself, her teeth closing on her lip. His skin was so warm under hers, the pulse strong and true where her fingers were looped around his wrist. "You're not a monster," she said finally. "I have to believe that, but you're not Harry either, and it was supposed to be him, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I can't - when I need -"

"What?" Tom asked, his eyes intent. "You think you need him to save you?"

"I don't know what I think anymore," she admitted.

Tom only looked at her a moment longer, and then cut his gaze away to the horizon, where the clouds boiled. "Time to leave," he said, lacing his fingers with hers.

 **oOo**

In Lerwick they had sipped hot chocolate and sat on a bench overlooking the harbour, watching the boats slicing through the glints of sunlight on the steely-blue water.

Hermione had been wracked with shivers, still feeling the damp chill of the North Sea mist deep in her bones. Tom had watched her, saying nothing as he wrapped an extra jacket around her shoulders.

When the sun had dipped below the horizon they had turned by wordless agreement back to the town, slipping into an alley, thence to apparate to Stavanger, where Hermione had been so tired that she staggered against Tom as they landed, sinking to her knees in the dew-damp grass as he took the wand from her unresisting grip to erect the wards and the tent, every bit as efficient as Harry had been by the end of the horcrux hunt.

"You need to eat something," Tom had said as he watched Hermione slot herself mechanically into the bottom bunk, but she had only shaken her head, feeling weak and nauseous. When she had closed her eyes she had seen a flash of red - pomegranate seeds bright as drops of blood - and she had thrown out her hand to catch her fingers in Tom's sleeve.

"Don't leave me," she'd whispered. "Please don't."

And he hadn't, curling his warmth around her and guarding against the spectral ghosts that haunted her restless sleep.

The next morning they'd risen early and struck camp, moving onto Aalborg and thence Hamburg, Hermione still insisting on apparating until she sagged with exhaustion and Tom flatly refused to let her, going so far as to set himself down on the kerbside on Hermannstraße until she agreed to give him her wand.

"After all," he'd murmured, "it isn't as though I really _need_ it."

She had been too drained to argue with him; too tired even to keep her eyes open as she felt the world fall away around them, the sharp yank of gravity giving way to only Tom: solid and insistently real, the neat line of the underside of his jaw with its dusting of dark stubble the last thing she saw before unconsciousness claimed her.

 **oOo**

 _4th August 2002 -_ _Hotel Merkwaardig,_ _Amsterdam, Netherlands_

When she woke up she was in a large bed, white sheets soft and cool against her skin, and the edge of a dream already fading from memory. Tom was sat on the other side of the bed, his face turned away towards the tall, narrow window through which rich summer sunshine fell in a welcome blaze.

She took a moment just to look at him; the way the sunlight turned the tips of his long eyelashes golden and kissed the tops of his cheekbones.

"You're awake," Tom said after a moment, making her start guiltily. He hadn't moved; hadn't opened his eyes.

"How long was I asleep?" Hermione asked, pushing herself upright and glancing around the room. It was beautifully decorated, with an exposed wooden floor, walls covered in dove-grey silk, and a few elegant pieces of dark wooden furniture.

"Twelve hours or so," Tom said, pushing himself to standing and walking to the window. He still hadn't looked at her. "I took advantage of the fact to apparate us as far as Istanbul, I thought we could -"

"You didn't!" Hermione threw the sheets off, leaping up from the bed to be immediately assailed by a wave of dizziness. Tom caught her under the elbow with an exasperated shake of his head as she lurched towards the window to see the sun reflecting off the narrow back of a canal some few stories below.

"Amsterdam," he said coolly. "As agreed."

Hermione blew out a relieved breath and allowed him to guide her back to the bed where she subsided back against the pillows.

Tom was watching her closely, his irritation not enough to hide the flash of real concern in his eyes as he asked her, "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been run over by a lorry," Hermione said, then scrunched her face with annoyance. "I mean trampled by -"

"I'm quite aware of what a lorry is, Hermione." His voice was quiet, holding in it a note of admonition. "You nearly drained yourself completely in your effort to keep my hands off your wand, and what purpose it would have served to splinch us somewhere over the Dutch border I've no idea."

Hermione grimaced, unable to argue with the stupidity of it. "I wasn't sure if it would work for you on something so complicated," she said weakly, squirming uncomfortably when Tom raised his eyebrows at her. "It's just, it isn't, it's a new -"

"I'm well aware it's a new wand," he said, pulling the object in question from his pocket and holding it up to the light. "Rowan, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded, "which -"

"The most incorruptible of the wandwoods," he said musingly. "No wonder I couldn't Imperius the hotelier."

Hermione felt the blood drain from her face and Tom rolled his eyes at her. "Please," he sighed. "You could try giving me the benefit of the doubt."

"Can you blame me?" Hermione asked, though she could feel herself turning scarlet with embarrassment at having been so easily teased. "It's not exactly a stretch to think that it might give you some trouble."

"Perhaps not," Tom said, then as though to demonstrate gave the wand a flick that created a chiming noise in the air of the room, which was quickly followed by the soft _pop_ of apparition.

"Mr Rebus, sir!" Hermione jumped as an elf's bright voice rang out across the room. "Is you requiring breakfast?"

"Yes," Tom said, his eyes gleaming with amusement as he glanced sidelong at Hermione. "Now that Miss Shepherd is awake I'd be most obliged if you could send up two continental trays and a pot of your best coffee."

"Right away, sir," the elf agreed, bowing low. With a snap of its fingers, the food appeared on the low table beside the bed, and with a _crack_ the elf disapparated.

"This is a wizarding hotel?" Hermione asked, as Tom leaned away from her to fill the coffee cups. She accepted the cup he passed her with a nod of thanks, shuffling a bit more upright to avoid spilling the hot liquid down the pyjamas that she definitely hadn't dressed herself in, and feeling her cheeks flame anew.

"In the wizarding quarter between the Nieuwe Herengracht and the Hortus Botanicus," Tom nodded, taking a long sip his coffee as he stepped away to look out of the window again. "I believe it's where the Blacks used to stay when they were in town."

Hermione nearly spluttered over her mouthful of coffee as she stared wide-eyed at him. "And you thought it would be safe to -"

"Pureblood families choose establishments for their discretion," Tom said, perfectly, infuriatingly unruffled as he glanced over his shoulder at her. "Though you will have noticed I took the precaution of not using our real names."

"Oh yes," Hermione scoffed. "Rebus and Shepherd, as though we're in some terrible detective novel."

Tom frowned slightly and then shook his head as though to dismiss this particular bit of stupidity. "If you're feeling well enough, I thought we might discuss what you wanted to do next?"

"Next?" Hermione had been helping herself to a croissant, but now looked up to see that Tom was watching her intently.

"The compass is indicating south," he said, "Which I suspect means -"

"Switzerland," Hermione nodded. "Or Italy."

"Quite," Tom said. "Either way, we cannot have much further to go, and so I was considering the question of how exactly we might explain my presence, when something occurred to me."

The room seemed to have gone very still, and Hermione could hear the rustle of Tom's clothing as he drew the wand out of his pocket again, spinning it in his fingers. "You tried to bring Potter back from the dead because you believe that he is the only one who can defeat the Dark Lord, correct?"

"That's what the prophecy said," Hermione agreed slowly, and Tom nodded.

"Prophecies are tricky things," he murmured. "Something that I - that the _other me_ seems to have forgotten."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, "What is it that you're getting at?"

"We get the saviours we deserve, Hermione." Tom tapped a finger thoughtfully against the window pane, the sunlight licking across his dark hair. "And you shouldn't trust a seer's timings."

"You can't possibly -"

"'And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal'," Tom quoted musingly, setting the wand down on the bedside table as he turned back towards her. "Isn't that what it said?"

She felt the way the mattress tilted as he sat down; how his weight tipped her towards him.

"'Born as the seventh month dies'," Hermione breathed, feeling ice slip down her spine, then frowned. "'Born to those who have three times defied him'?"

"Riddle me this," Tom smirked. "It's no surprise you couldn't stand Trelawney, when she would insist on wording it like that, but I wonder, would I be mistaken in thinking your little mob have faced _him_ down three times?"

Hermione blinked with the realisation. _Hogwarts, The Burrow, Nott Manor_. "I -" she started to say, and then stopped, because Tom's finger was under her chin, was tipping her face up towards his.

She shivered at the heat of his touch, at the not-quite-pressure of his fingertip, at the terrifying closeness of him.

"'Neither can live while the other survives'," she said, hardly daring to breathe as he leaned towards her.

"Well," Tom said, and she felt the whisper of the word against her mouth, "I quite like my odds."

She didn't want him to kiss her; didn't want to know how it might feel to have his lips on hers, his hands tangled in her hair, his body, _him,_ pressed to hers, to her. She didn't want it, because the moment she had it she was afraid that she would never want anything else.

" _My mother used to say that Tom Riddle had two specialities,"_ Draco smiled in her memory, bitter and dark. " _Seduction and destruction."_

Hermione flinched back, and Tom dropped his chin to his chest with a humourless laugh. "It seems I will keep forgetting how impossible you are," he said, his voice low and mocking, and Hermione felt a jolt of the same anger that had animated her back in Mykines.

"Just because you can work a Rowan wand," she spat, "and just because you have Harry's memories, it doesn't _make_ you him, you can't pretend that you're -"

"Pretend that I'm Harry?" Tom asked, his head coming up so that his eyes drowned her in cobalt. "I'm not him, Hermione," he growled, "and I'm done _pretending_."

He was a cliff-edge, a sheer precipice yawning open before her. She could feel magic quickening between them, stealing her breath and squeezing her heart and - _seduction and destruction_ -

"Then stop," she whispered.

* * *

 _ **A/N** : For **frak-all** , truly a joy._


	12. Music of forces

**_Chapter 12: Music of forces_**

* * *

 _Now - 4th August 2002, Hotel Merkwaardig_ , _Amsterdam, Netherlands_

"I'm not him, Hermione," Tom said. His voice was rough, his eyes frighteningly blue in the afternoon sunlight. "And I'm done _pretending_."

"Then stop." The whisper came out angrier than she had intended, full of the frustration that threatened to rise up her throat and choke her every time he wrongfooted her like this. She shifted up onto her knees in the bed, letting the duvet fall from where it had been tucked under her arms as she placed her cup on the bedside table next to her wand. "I don't know what you think you're doing, what you're trying to get me to believe, but you need to _stop_."

" _Fine_ ," Tom growled, moving quick as a snake to fist a hand in her hair. Hermione tried to jerk backwards in shock but his grip was too tight, his arm snaking under hers and up her spine to hold her in place. "But if you think I was trying to trick you with the prophecy then you're wrong."

"There's no way -" Hermione bit out, but Tom cut her off.

"Think about it," he breathed. "Use that massive brain that everyone's always going on about."

His eyes were intent upon her face, and Hermione swallowed, several responses flashing through her mind as she watched his pupils dilate.

It couldn't have been about him, Hermione told herself. There was no way that Trelawney's prophecy could have - it would make a mockery of everything Harry had stood for, everything that they had believed, and yet -

What if they weren't out of chances?

"You brought me back from the dead, Hermione," Tom whispered. "Do you think that sort of thing just _happens_?"

She brought her hand up to rest against Tom's chest, feeling the lean span of muscle twitch minutely beneath her fingers.

 _Careful_ , she told herself.

"What are you doing?" he asked. She felt rather than heard the hitch in his breath as she trailed her hand downwards to grip his hipbone.

"Say I believe you," she ventured, her free hand searching the table behind her for her wand. "Say that I agree it might just be -" Tom released his hold on her hair, and Hermione couldn't suppress a shiver as he drew his hand back, brushing his fingers over her ribs. "That it just might be _possible_ that -"

Her words stuttered to a stop as he drew a finger along the scar on her neck that her hair left exposed.

"Sometimes you remind me of her," he murmured softly, and Hermione's stomach clenched: half horror, half want as she held her breath, her fingers brushing her wand, _almost - almost -_

"Andromeda always was the brave one. And then Narcissa was clever, and Bella -" his fingers twitched almost imperceptibly against her neck.

"What about Bella?" she asked, and Tom looked over at her, his eyes mapping a familiar trajectory across her face. _Eyes - cheekbones - lips_.

"Loyal," he said, soft and sad, and though she knew there was a part of him that mourned her, Hermione felt a creeping sense of what she refused to believe was jealousy. "Bella was loyal to those she loved, and treacherous to all others. Just like you." And suddenly the sadness fell from his face like a glittering mask, leaving only calculation in the moment before he brushed his mouth against hers.

"Nice try," he murmured as Hermione froze with shock, just long enough for his hands to move again, quick as lightning, one to close around her neck and the other around her wrist. Hermione made a choked squawk of protest as he squeezed her throat hard enough to leave a bruise. "You think I'd believe that I'd won you over, just like that?" His mouth was still torturously close to hers, their bodies aligned in a mockery of a lovers' embrace that made her heart pound in her chest.

"Don't try to con a con man," Tom went on, relaxing the pressure on her neck to stroke his thumb over the hollow of her collarbone.

"You're right." Hermione's voice sounded strained to her own ears, carrying the memory of his crushing grip. "I should stick to what I'm good at."

He reared back the moment her hand left his hip, but she'd been counting on that, since it gave her enough clearance to take a swing at him. There was a crunching sound as her fist connected with his nose, and Tom released his grip on her, hands flying to his face as he fell backwards off the bed with a furious shout.

" _Fuck!_ "

Hermione leapt up, scrambling to cross the room in search of her beaded bag, but she didn't get far before Tom caught her by the ankle to bring her crashing to the floor.

"Ow!" Hermione yelped, raising her wand to stun him, but Tom had dragged himself to his knees and threw his full weight onto her, knocking her hand aside so that the spell went flying to the ceiling, the wand rolling away from her under the bed.

She kicked at him, eliciting a grunt of pain as his grip on her loosened enough for her to push upwards and roll them both over, pinning him under her as he got hold of her wrists and held them where they pressed into his shoulders.

"Are you happy now?" he hissed. He tried ineffectually to shift himself free, but Hermione leaned her weight on her hands, feeling bone pressing against the heels of her palms as she dug them against the meat of him.

This close she could see that her fist had made a mess of his face, blood staining the lower half of it from his broken nose.

"Of course not," she ground out, "I'm still stuck with _you_ , and I'm still going to have to try and make the fucking _best_ of it."

"You chose this," Tom spat, straining upwards against her in a way that made Hermione suddenly very aware of the way she was straddling him, even as she fought to hold him down underneath her. "And you're making me choose it too, because I can't -"

He paused, his grip on her wrists loosening as he slid his hands up her arms to press his fingers into her triceps.

"Can't what?" Hermione told herself she couldn't hear the catch in her breath; couldn't feel the rise and fall of Tom's abdomen as he sighed under her.

"You brought me back," he whispered. "And we're each other's best hope for getting what we want, so I can't fight you."

She wasn't sure when her head had dipped towards his, but their faces were so close that Hermione could feel the way the air sparked in the scant inches that divided them. "Are you saying you let me win?"

Tom turned his head so that the tip of his nose brushed the edge of hers. "Who's winning here, muggle girl?"

His eyes were dark as midnight, endless as the sky, and she could feel the pull of him, somewhere deep inside her, in the part that couldn't deny the way he lit her blood and stole her breath and made her forget everything except the feel of him, right there, beneath her.

"I don't know," she breathed. The space separating their mouths was almost nothing at all - Hermione could practically taste the blood on his lips when there was a knock at the door.

 **oOo**

 _Before - 20th June 2002, Ministry of Magic, London_

If you didn't pay too much attention, the days slipped past much as they ever had.

If anything, the quiet suited him. The sombre mood made it easier to concentrate; easier to keep his head down and never think about how wrong it all was.

Stack all of those feelings - all of the grief, and the pain, and terrible _terribleness_ of everything - behind a stone wall in his mind, and deny that any of it was happening.

And if his fingers itched with the need to pick up his wand; if his throat ached with the pressure of holding in a scream of rage; if his eyes burned with all the terrible things he had seen, then it didn't matter, because he couldn't let it show.

He'd taken a Stunning Spell to the back as they'd fled the Battle of Hogwarts, and it was only luck and some very quick thinking that had managed to persuade Dolohov that he had been there fighting on the side of the Ministry.

The Dark Lord and his followers never seemed to understand that the Cruciatus Curse was only really ever effective in getting people to talk when they were acting in self-interest. As soon as you had someone else to protect, none of it mattered.

He pushed open the door to his office, still immersed in his paperwork, but came to an abrupt stop at the sight of the dark-haired wizard lounging behind his desk.

"What do you want?" Percy asked, surprised and annoyed that Nott seemed to have somehow managed to bypass his security measures.

"Big question," Theo smirked. "The end of _The Daily Prophet_ 's stranglehold on the wizarding press, the trade embargo against Italy to be lifted so I can get some new ties, the destruction of my enemies, the wrackspurt infestation in the lower levels of the Ministry to be cleared -"

He was ticking things off on his fingers as he went, but Percy frowned and stopped him. "Wrackspurts?"

"Heard of them have you?" Theo threw him a malevolent little smirk. "Tricky little buggers. Very evasive, and then of course as soon as you catch them, all you can do is hope that they'll get free."

"Hope that they'll -" Percy echoed softly, dropping himself slowly into the armchair that faced his desk. "You're not talking about Wrackspurts."

"Am I not?" Theo's smile shrank slightly, and his eyes glittered in the lamplight. "What else could I possibly wish to see evicted from the Ministry dungeons?"

Percy's hand twitched with the desire to loosen his tie. Four years of being very, very careful seemed all at once to be crowding his throat, making it difficult to swallow as he considered his options.

"I heard a rumour," he said slowly, "that Hermione Granger had been caught."

"You must have good ears," Theo said. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. "Hear anything else?"

Percy considered Theo; considered how much trouble he potentially wanted to bring down around his own ears. His heart was beating very fast, and somehow it felt _good_ \- it felt _right_ to be _doing_ something and -

"I heard Narcissa Malfoy disappeared," he said carefully.

"You did, did you?" Theo tilted his head. "And yet all I hear of you is that you're a model employee; punctual, efficient, and entirely unworthy of note, unless you count the total renunciation of your family's loyalty to the Order of the Phoenix."

If Theo was trying to get a rise out of him, Percy hoped he was disappointed. Worse things had been said to him. He'd done worse things.

"And yet," Theo sighed. "I find it strange that so _many_ suspected muggleborns manage to turn up wizarding family trees; that the order to maintain the unplottable status of the ruins of Hogwarts Castle is upheld; and that a full horde of goblins appear to have simply vanished."

"None of that can be connected to me," Percy said. His mouth was dry, and there was a vague ringing in his ears as he stared Theo out. "I haven't signed off on any of it."

"No you haven't," Theo agreed easily, sitting back to watch him like a cat with a mouse between its paws. "And yet I would say the very fact that _none_ of this paperwork appears to have crossed your desk is suspicious in itself." He waited a moment, making a show of studying his nails before he continued. "Of course, I've covered your tracks, so now there really is nothing to raise any alarms."

"Why would you -" Percy started to ask in a rush before he stopped himself, smoothing his tie and trying to regain his composure. "What do you want?"

"I need your help," Theo shrugged amiably.

"With what?" Percy demanded. "Getting Hermione out?"

"Oh, Merlin, no." Theo actually laughed at that. "Granger's got herself covered, I wouldn't dare interfere. No," he went on, "I need your help making _me_ disappear."

"Ah," Percy said, vaguely wondering how this was his life. "Right."

"And I need to be gone in four days," Theo grinned.

 **oOo**

 _Now - 4th August 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands_

At the sound of the knock Hermione sprang backwards away from Tom, who sat up, his hand rising apparently unconsciously to his mouth before he dropped it to the floor beside him. For a moment neither of them moved, simply staring at each other, until the knock came again.

"Mr Rebus? Miss Shepherd?" a faintly-accented voice called through the door. "This is Schouwer Hendriks and Schouwer van Vliet, from the Ministerie van Toverkunst. We have a report of a disturbance in your room - is everything ok?"

"Fine!" Hermione finally gathered her wits enough to answer, snatching her wand from under the bed and quickly spelling the room to order. "With you in just a second!"

" _Clean yourself up!_ " she hissed to Tom, as she made her way to the door.

"No," he said bluntly, stepping forward to stand beside her.

"What do you mean -"

Tom swung the door open, and Hermione snapped her mouth closed, smiling with what she hoped was a less maniacal expression than it felt at the sight of the two Aurors who were standing in the hall.

"Miss Shepherd?" The taller of the two stepped forward at Hermione's nod, followed closely by his partner. "Thank you for - Mr Rebus!" The tall Auror had apparently just noticed Tom's bloodied state. "What happened?"

"Tripped over the carpet!" Tom laughed. "Honestly, I'm terribly clumsy, it really is appalling."

"Right," the Auror nodded doubtfully, glancing at Hermione, who did her best to look small and innocent. Apparently satisfied, he stepped across the room, glancing around as though searching for further clues.

Hermione watched him for a moment before she became aware that the other Auror was squinting dubiously at her.

"Shepherd?" he said quietly, and she nodded, before his eyes moved to his partner. " _Hendriks! Komt ze je bekend voor_?"

The blond Auror, Hendriks span on his heel and stared at Hermione before he glanced at his partner. " _Je denkt niet..?_ "

"Ah," Tom said. "Ah, this is -"

"Hermione Granger!" van Vliet said firmly, all doubt apparently cast aside. "I am arresting you for treason against the Ministry of Magic of Great Britain, war crimes committed in league with the terrorist organisation the Order of the Phoenix, the murder of Narcissa Malfoy, the abduction of Theodore Nott -"

"Hold on just a minute," Hermione managed to interject, feeling an edge of panic as the blond auror sent a quick spell out of the window. " _I'm_ wanted for _war crimes_ , are you -"

"Oh thank Merlin!" Tom cried, stepping in front of her so that the Aurors couldn't see him take her wand. "I'd almost given up any hope of you finding us - it's been terrible, you've no idea."

"Mr Nott?" van Vliet asked, frowning. "You are Mr Theodore Nott?"

" _Hij komt overeen met de beschrijving_ ," Hendriks shrugged when van Vliet looked to him for confirmation.

Hermione felt the faint, ghostly energy in her palm as Tom slowly raised the wand in his hand; the horrible, metallic tang of the spell; and her eyes widened with recognition. " _No_ ," she breathed, and Tom spared her the barest glance downwards before rolling his eyes and sending twin stunners shooting towards the Aurors before either of them could react.

"Happy?" he asked her, as they crumpled to the floor.

"What, that you didn't murder anyone?" she grumbled. "Ecstatic." She knelt down to pull both the men into the recovery position, deliberately not looking up when Tom gave a pointed sigh.

"We don't have time for this."

"I'm not going to leave them to choke on their tongues," she spat.

"Hermione." Tom's voice was suddenly urgent as he grabbed her arm and hauled her upright. "Hendriks sent a message off, do you really think we're not about to -"

He stopped talking, looking up suddenly as the air around them began to pull and twist, and the first _pop_ of apparition echoed through the room.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I woke up this morning and decided this chapter needed to be written. Thanks to everyone who is reading along, dropping in whenever I manage to get my shit together and get an update out for you, and also to all of those new readers who have caught up so far! You're all the best and I love you. _


	13. Luminous Twin Significance

**_Chapter 13: Luminous Twin Significance_**

* * *

 _4th August 2002 - Hotel Merkwaardig, Amsterdam, Netherlands_

" _Stupefy!_ "

Percy barely had time to duck, dropping to his knees and rolling to the side as the spell flew over his head. From the crashing noise behind him he suspected that the stunner had still found its mark in Travers, but he didn't have time to look before the air twisted again and Yaxley appeared to his left, his wand already raised in his bluish-silver hand, and Percy didn't hesitate.

" _Stupefy_!"

Yaxley crumpled, and Percy's lungs expanded slightly in his chest before he shifted his attention to the witch and wizard who were stood across the room.

Hermione looked much the same as ever - perhaps a little thinner, the shadows under her eyes a little more pronounced than he remembered. Her hair, however (certainly her most immediately recognisable feature) was just as wild as always.

"Well," said the dark-haired man who, contrary to the high-alert report from the Dutch Ministry was decidedly _not_ Theodore Nott. "That was rather unexpected."

He spun a light-wooded wand between his fingers, and Percy found himself caught by the movement, by something familiar in the cadence of the man's speech. Percy swallowed, recognising a threat when he saw one, and forced his fingers to loosen on his own wand, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender as he let it fall to the floor beside him and looked back to Hermione.

"Percy," she said, taking a hesitant half-step towards him. "What are you doing here?" She looked more bemused than anything, her mouth edging upwards into something that might have become a smile, but failed at the final hurdle.

"The Ministry," he said. "There's an order for your arrest and I thought - thought you might need help."

"Kind of you," the man smirked. "But you'll excuse me if I don't buy the charitable act."

Percy bristled. "I don't think I will, actually -"

"Percy Weasley," the man sighed. "You do not change, do you?"

Percy frowned at the familiarity in his voice, looking the man over and wracking his brain to think where he had seen him before, though he drew a frustrating blank. He was tall, slim but strongly built, with handsome features that were currently marred by a bloodied nose that looked only just on the right side of broken.

"Who are you?" he demanded finally, deciding attack was probably the best form of defence. "The summons from _Schouwer_ Hendriks said that they had apprehended Hermione Granger in the company of Theodore Nott, but you aren't -"

"No," the man agreed, "I'm not." He smiled wider, all brilliant teeth, and it was enough to send a shiver of fear up Percy's spine. His tone was amiable enough, but that expression was cold as ice. "But neither am I eager to be the subject of an interrogation." He raised an eyebrow and spun the wand again between those long fingers, and Percy's mouth went dry as he was struck once more by the sense of having seen the gesture before.

"Hermione -" he started forward, his only coherent thought that he needed to get her as far away as possible, but the man tutted and shook his head, waving the wand languidly and conjuring slim, dark cords that caught Percy's wrists and ankles, and twined their way around his mouth. Hermione didn't take her eyes off him as she stepped slowly to the man's side, placing her hand on the wand.

"Tom," she murmured, and there was such casual intimacy in her tone, in her fingers on the wand, that Percy would have laughed had he not been gagged.

 _Tom._

He watched in disbelief as the man released the wand into Hermione's grip, stepping smoothly behind her, all the while directing that terrible smile towards Percy.

He couldn't help it: his eyes slid down the angle of the man's cheekbone, noting the shape of his mouth and the precise curve of his brow. The nose was different; was _there_ ; and the eyes were blue, the hair black, but still Percy could feel the familiar roil in his stomach, the animal instinct to get as far away as physically possible - but it couldn't be, it couldn't _possibly_ be -

 _Tom_.

Hermione was watching him, he realised, and he looked back at her, holding her gaze and seeing something ineffable solidify there. "Do you know who this is?" she asked, and Percy wished that it was in him to shake his head, to deny the realisation; to say that it was impossible, a paradox; but before he could stop himself his chin had dipped towards his chest, and the man's eyebrows had drawn into a frown.

"No," he said flatly. "There's no way that he could _possibly_ have -"

"Tom." Hermione shook her head, and Percy felt his stomach weighed down by another ounce of dread at hearing the name spoken aloud again. Still, he had room for a whisper of surprise at how willingly the man - _Tom_ \- fell silent when Hermione commanded it. Questions were chasing rapidly through his mind - _how_ and _why_ chief among them - but he tried to stamp down on these as Hermione stepped forward and knelt in front of him.

"I am going to remove the bindings," she said. "I need you to not do anything stupid when I do."

Percy gave her his best haughty scowl, honed during his early years at the Ministry when asserting one's right to be there had seemed to be mostly a matter of trying to make anyone else that you came across feel inferior. Hermione's mouth twitched with amusement, and Percy was uncomfortably reminded of how very attractive she was as she flicked the wand.

" _Liberandus_."

As the cords dissipated into nothingness Percy lunged for his wand, pointing it at Hermione without hesitation. " _Finite Incatatem!_ "

"Oh for fuck's sake," Hermione cried, snatching her hand away when Tom made a grab for the wand. "That's exactly the sort of - _no_ , Tom - _Expelliarmus!_ "

"You're not bespelled," Percy said, not even trying to keep hold of his wand as the full force of his horror descended. "You're doing this of your own free will."

"And here I thought you were supposed to be the brains of the Weasley family," Tom drawled. In contrast to his voice his face was a mask of tightly controlled fury, and Percy made himself stay absolutely still as he stared over Hermione's shoulder to hold Tom's gaze.

"How are you here?" he asked. "The Dark Lord is installed at the Ministry, how on earth could you possibly -"

"How long do we have?" Hermione sighed, and Percy dragged his attention back to her in order to frown slightly at the question.

"How long do we have before what?"

"Before the Ministry realises something's wrong and sends reinforcements." Hermione's tone was snippy, and it was amazing, Percy thought, that she could still switch herself into that gratingly superior mode. How easy it was to remember her irritating, impossible righteousness.

"Long enough," he said tersely, rising to his feet and rubbing at his wrists. "They wouldn't expect you to come quietly, and Yaxley would want to have some fun as payback for his hand." He saw Tom's eyes flick to the man's prone body, his lip curling slightly.

"That wasn't even _me_ ," Hermione huffed, just as Tom growled "I'd like to see him _try_."

"Are you going to explain what you're doing prancing around Europe in the company of Tom Riddle?" Percy barked, prompting Hermione to gape at him and Tom to level a considering glare.

"How do you know that name?" he asked, with every appearance of mild curiosity, but Percy felt the snaking sensation of legilimency and threw up his mental walls as high as they would go.

"I'm not stupid," he said. "Whatever you might think." He cut his eyes to Hermione, "I'm not Ron."

"And yet you still haven't answered my question." Tom's quiet voice was now dripping with unmistakable menace, and Percy swallowed tightly.

"I make it my business to know things," he said. "I file all the paperwork, including the requests for names to be excised from the Hogwarts attendance records, for mentions of _horcruxes_ in the Ministry archives to be expunged, and as I say, I'm not an _idiot_ -"

"Enough," Hermione said, but Percy ignored her.

"Is that what you are, _Tom?_ Some meagre sliver of a soul?"

"Good guess." Tom hadn't even blinked. "And terribly clever of you to have put it all together." He paused, seeming to consider something. "I think you'll find, however, that I'm much more _substantial_ than your Master."

There was, Percy had to admit, something unnervingly _solid_ about this incarnation. He lacked the mercurial, shifting quality that typified Voldemort, and Percy could not have said right then whether that made this version of Tom Riddle more or less terrifying.

"He's not my master," he countered hotly, unwilling to betray the full extent of his fear. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Do I not?" The words were spoken in the tone of deadly quiet that Percy had grown used to over the last few years, but this voice was deeper, more mellifluous, and he fought to suppress a shudder as it worked its way under his skin.

"Theo told us you were alive, that you had helped him," Hermione said slowly, though a glance told Percy that her hand was still tight around her wand. "He said that you've been keeping the patrols away from Hogwarts, that you fudged the paperwork for some muggleborns and -"

"I think the real question here," Tom remarked casually, almost as though Hermione hadn't spoken, "is how you managed to achieve such astonishing latitude. If I know your Master -" he paused, his smile blooming outwards with the deliberate choice of words "- which I'm sure you'd agree, I am uniquely well-qualified to say that I _do_ , he would demand proof of indisputable loyalty before he would allow you such a position."

Hermione glanced between them, and Percy saw the doubt settle firmly on her face. "Percy. What does he mean?"

 **oOo**

 _4th August 2002 - Outskirts of Uzès, Occitanie, Southern France_

"You know," Draco said thoughtfully as he stepped to Parvati's side. "They do say that a watched cauldron never -"

"I'm watching the horizon," Parvati countered tartly. "I know you've only got one good eye but you could at least try using it."

If she'd meant to put him off, Draco decided, she was going to have to try much harder. "We'd have heard by now," he said. "If she'd been caught they wouldn't keep it a -"

"What if she's just dead?" Parvati snapped. "There's a hundred ways she could have died trying to - to - _you know_ , and we'd never know what had happened to her."

"Tell me again about the reading?" Draco asked, and Parvati sighed, her fingers tracing runes in the fine layer of dust on the attic windowsill. _Clarity,_ Draco saw. _Intuition, Determination_ , and something that looked like a slightly wonky _Humility._

"Every card was Death," Parvati said softly, her eyes far away. "When I tried to read for her, every single one. And then I brought them to her and it happened again, every card she drew, until the last three."

"Which were..?" Draco prompted.

"The Hanged Man, The High Priestess, and The Lovers."

"Delightful," Draco mused. "Certainly not at all ominous to have an entire reading full of death before you drew Potter and Granger as -"

"I don't think it was Harry." Parvati's voice was almost inaudible, but Draco looked at her so sharply he almost pulled something.

"What the fuck do you mean it wasn't Harry? Who else could it -"

"I don't know," Parvati whispered. "But any time I read for Harry before... _before,_ he was always The Tower."

Draco couldn't help but acknowledge how a card symbolising destruction and liberation made a great deal of sense in Potter's ill-fated case. "Well Granger was fairly determined that she was going to bring him back from the dead," he said slowly. "It would stand to reason that there would be something...different about him."

"Maybe," Parvati nodded, though Draco could tell she was far from convinced. She blinked, and seemed to give herself a shake. "What was it you wanted?"

"Lunch," Draco pronounced. "No use fretting on an empty stomach, so I have been charged with fetching you from your lonely vigil in order to - are you listening?"

Parvati was looking out of the window again, her eyes narrowed into a squint. "Draco," she said quietly. "Is that an owl?"

Draco turned and followed her gaze, almost starting with surprise when he saw the winged shape growing closer by the moment. "Well, I take back what I said about cauldrons."

 **oOo**

 _Hotel Merkwaardig, Amsterdam, Netherlands_

"Percy." Hermione had felt her blood turn cold at Tom's words. _Proof of indisputable loyalty._ "What does he mean?"

Percy fidgeted under her gaze before he jerked his head towards Tom. "Do you trust him?" he asked, blatantly avoiding the question. "Because I don't know how he's here, or what you did to get him but I'm not telling you a fucking _thing_ until -"

"I trust him," Hermione said, surprised by her own certainty, and wondering quite when she had decided to do so. Percy blinked in shock, and behind her she sensed the subtle shift in Tom's posture; felt the momentary flare of his magic.

"Fine," Percy ground out eventually, mercifully distracting her from Tom. "On your head be it." There was a brief pause as he chewed his lip, before his next words tumbled from him in an ungainly rush: "It isn't what you think."

In spite of herself Hermione's jaw tightened in anger, and she watched as Percy scrunch his eyes closed, obviously hearing how the words sounded before he sighed defeatedly. "Come on, you know how this works." His gaze went briefly to Tom, before returning to Hermione. "I had to give them something believable, something no-one else could -"

"The Burrow," she whispered, and saw Percy flinch.

"It was Dad's idea," he said, his voice dull before he stopped and seemed to gather himself. "They couldn't get anything out of me with the _Cruciatus_ , but they still wouldn't let me - I had to -" he gestured helplessly before looking again to Tom. When he continued, his voice was no more than a croak. "The Dark Lord only trusts those that he believes have given up everything in order to follow his cause. I couldn't be of any use unless I -"

"How was it Arthur's idea?" Hermione interrupted him, fury making her words sharp and impatient. "We were in hiding, you couldn't have -"

"A Protean Charm," Percy sighed, lifting his wrist to show her his watch, the crystal face cracked and blackened. "Dad was always good with clocks, and he made sure that the watches they gave us -"

"I don't understand!" Hermione cried. "They wouldn't give us up; they'd sooner have _died_ than -" She stopped, inhaling sharply as the pieces clicked into place and feeling her face go slack with horror. "They sacrificed themselves."

Percy nodded. A tear slid down his cheek, though he made no move to wipe it away. "Dad thought it would be worth it in order to secure my place at the Ministry, if -"

"But George!" Hermione cut him off, her voice raw with emotion. "They would never have -"

"It didn't go entirely to plan," Percy conceded miserably. "I never thought _he_ would go himself, it seemed like such a huge risk to take."

Tom made a humming sound behind her, and Hermione's skin erupted in gooseflesh as he ran his fingers down her forearm to take the wand back again. Percy's eyes followed the movement, his expression impossible to read.

"There are certain things that the Dark Lord takes very personally," Tom said slowly. "But I agree that seems a rather foolish gamble. Much as coming here today was a foolish gamble on your part, Percy Weasley."

Percy blanched visibly. "I told you, I wanted to -"

"Have you grown tired of the monotony of serving the Dark Lord?" Tom asked conversationally. "Looking for a little something to liven things up, perhaps?"

"Things are moving," Percy said helplessly. "After years of _nothing_ they're finally moving, with the raid on Hogwarts, Theo and Narcissa's disappearances, this - bloody - _whatever_ this is -" He stopped, took a deep breath, and then looked Tom in the eye. "I came here because I knew Hermione was up to something, and I wanted to help her."

"Helping her means helping me," Tom said, and Percy threw him a look of utter loathing before his eyes moved to Hermione.

"This - him being here, being _alive_ \- is a paradox," he said bluntly, "and you of all people must know that it cannot be sustained indefinitely. Whatever it is that you're planning with Dark Lord 2.0, you'd better be certain that -"

"We're going to kill him," Hermione said, and Percy's mouth snapped shut as he stared at her. Out of his line of sight, Tom brought his fingers to rest on Hermione's lower back, and she fought a shiver at the indication of approval.

"'Neither can live while the other survives'," he quoted quietly. "Isn't that rather the definition of a paradox?"

Percy's eyes widened as he recognised the words of the prophecy. "Hermione," he said, voice gentle but firm. "He's _not_ Harry, and you have to realise this sounds completely -"

"I know who he is," Hermione snapped. "You think I could fucking forget? Desperate times call for desperate measures, Perce, and I wouldn't think that I'd need to remind you of that."

Percy didn't even look at Tom, focusing completely on Hermione. "You're serious aren't you?"

Hermione held his stare, her fingers tight on the wand as she tried to calculate how much time they could spare for an obliviation. "As a heart attack."

Percy lifted his hands to cover his mouth, blowing out a noisy breath against his fingers and closing his eyes for a brief moment. "Fine. What would you have me do?"

* * *

 _ **A/N:** For **WittyBasketcase**. Thank you!_


	14. A Many-Coloured Revelation

**_Chapter 14: A Many-Coloured Revelation_**

* * *

 _Before - 4th August 2002 - Hotel Merkwaardig, Amsterdam, Netherlands_

"We need somebody in the Ministry," Hermione said, sharing a look with Tom before she turned back to Percy. "We need somebody at the centre of things who can move when the time is right and help us to -"

"They'll suspect me," Percy said. "You-Know-Who gets more paranoid every day, and it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to kill me, Yaxley and Travers outright for letting you get away."

"Then we make you look above suspicion," Tom said quietly. He twirled the wand in his fingers, and Percy paled visibly, though Hermione was impressed when he didn't look away from Tom's gaze.

"What would that involve?" he asked.

"We modify your memory. Yaxley and Travers too," Hermione said, before Tom could answer. "We make it seem sloppy, rushed, and we lay the blank over your real memories so that -"

"So that they don't go digging," Tom nodded slowly. "But we should still make it look as though we didn't have too easy a time of subduing you."

"Meaning what?" Percy asked.

Tom looked at Hermione, smiling amiably as though to say ' _this was your plan'_. She swallowed, recognising the test, but unsure whether it was one she wanted to pass.

"You said they used the Cruciatus curse on you," she said slowly, and cringed slightly as two red spots appeared in Percy's pale cheeks.

"Hermione -" he started hotly, but Tom interrupted him.

"Would the Dark Lord expect anyone to take a Cruciatus voluntarily?" he asked pleasantly. Percy's jaw tightened, fingers clenching at his sides.

"No," he said. "But that doesn't mean -"

"You know it's the best way," Hermione interrupted. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief when Percy relaxed slightly. "If you come with us you make our group too recognisable, but if you go back to the Ministry you can help us from there." Percy glared at her. "Please, Perce. You know it makes sense."

"And what if I stun the pair of you and take you to straight to Bill?" he said.

"You can't beat us both," Hermione pointed out gently, though his pig-headed courage made her want to smile. "You know there's only one way that ends."

"Do feel free to try though," Tom remarked, as he turned away and put the wand to Yaxley's temple.

Percy's jaw was still working as he stared daggers at the back of Tom's head, but eventually he sighed deeply, shoulders drooping, before he pushed a hand resignedly through his hair.

"When I heard you'd gone in search of the Well of Souls I thought you must have lost it," he said quietly. "I'd only ever heard of it as a legend, it didn't seem like -"

"When did you hear I'd gone there?" Hermione asked, alarmed.

Percy blinked in surprise at her abrupt tone, then frowned. "There was an intelligence report," he said slowly, "after the raid at Hogwarts. They sent a team of Aurors up there and everything but when you didn't show up after five days they thought they must have missed you -"

"There was a time dilation," Hermione said absently. "I went in on the 19th and didn't come out until the 31st, but -"

"' _Born as the seventh month dies_ '," Percy murmured, his eyes on Tom. "Shit, Hermione, that's -"

"Somebody betrayed us," Hermione said, ignoring Percy's look of dawning incredulity. "I thought maybe the Death Eaters found us at Hogwarts by chance, but if they knew about the Well too -" she grabbed Percy's arm. "Did they take any prisoners?" she demanded. "When they raided Hogwarts did they -"

"I don't know." Percy shook his head. "If they did, they kept it under wraps. Like I said, the Dark Lord's getting more paranoid, he won't -"

"But some of them made it out?" Hermione pressed him. "Some of the others -"

"Theo's still at large," Percy nodded. "That's why they're saying he's with you. I'd imagine most of the others as well, since there's been no fanfare about anyone being caught, and no -" he paused; swallowed. "No more executions."

"So whoever sold us out -" Hermione started -

"- might still be with the others," Tom finished her thought for her, rising smoothly to his feet before he turned the wand towards Travers.

"Which could mean we're heading into a trap," Hermione said, with growing horror. "Or that they're already dead, or -"

"As Weasley points out, there would an announcement if they'd been caught," Tom said. "And while I agree that it might be a trap, I don't see that we have many other options."

Hermione looked at Percy, who shrugged, and then back to Tom.

"That's it?" she asked, bewildered.

"You brought me back to help you end the war," Tom said. He finished the Memory Charm on Travers with a neat flourish. "Isn't walking straight into a trap exactly what Potter would do?"

"What would Harry Potter do?" Percy asked, with a weak attempt at humour, as he watched Tom move onto the two _schouwers_.

"One finds oneself acquiring a taste for pointless heroics," Tom murmured, turning Hendriks's head to one side as he worked the spell. Hermione could feel the energy of the linked charms pulling at the air of the room.

"You're really prepared to - what? Kill the other part of your soul?" Percy asked dubiously.

"That part of my soul," Tom said without looking up, "has squandered the legacy of everything I tried to build." He turned the wand to van Vliet. "I have seen him devolving into madness; seen him almost destroyed by a teenage boy because he has become scared of his own shadow. Yes," he finished the spell and finally turned his eyes to Percy, "I am quite ready to kill him."

There was silence for a moment, and then Percy looked at Hermione. "I don't like this," he said.

"I know," she replied, giving him a pleading look. "But it's not just about us."

"Are you ready, Weasley?" Tom's voice came from closer than she had expected, and Hermione glanced behind her to see him standing in the middle of the room. Though they had cleaned most of the blood from his face there was still a scarlet stain down the front of his shirt, and he fairly exuded menace as he stood there, smiling slightly and apparently relaxed, just daring Percy to make a move.

In a very un-Weasley-like demonstration of admirable restraint Percy ignored this provocation, not breaking his gaze from Hermione's. "Don't forget what we're fighting for," he told her simply. His eyes darted towards Tom, and then back again. "What we're _all_ fighting for."

Hermione nodded once and then Percy knelt, scowling up to where Tom was still smirking at him. "Make it quick," he growled, removing his belt and placing the leather between his teeth.

Tom's smile widened, suffused with what appeared to be genuine warmth as he raised the wand. "Art should not be rushed, Weasley," he said softly, before - " _Crucio_."

Hermione forced herself not to look away from Percy's grimace of agony, dropping to her knees and bracing his shoulders with her hands as the spell seared its way through his flesh. Terrible as it was, it was the best way to prove his innocence to the Ministry. After all, what sort of masochist would agree to be Crucio'd?

"I won't forget," Hermione whispered, as Percy's growl of pain deepened to a groan. A blood-vessel burst in his eye and she choked back a wave of bile as she watched crimson flood across the white. How many times had he endured the curse, she wondered, that he could take it now with barely a sound? "And I'll never stop fighting."

Percy's fingers squeezed her arm in what she thought might have been an acknowledgement of the words, though with his body now being wracked by shudders of torment it was hard to tell. His jaw was working convulsively, but Hermione waited until she saw spittle starting to foam white at the edge of his mouth before she looked up at Tom.

"Enough now," she said firmly, and even so was a little surprised when he nodded without argument, lifting the wand and watching with an expression of cool appraisal as Percy collapsed forwards into Hermione's arms, gasping for air.

"You have to -" he started to choke out, but Tom flicked the wand again and Percy's eyes rolled upwards as the silent Stunning spell took effect.

Hermione let him gently down to the floor before she stood up and glared at Tom, who was still watching Percy.

"You could at least try to pretend you didn't enjoy that so much," she huffed.

"Why?" Tom asked. "You'll only use it as an excuse to get angry with me for lying to you, and besides, I like him better when he isn't talking. Before you say anything," he went on, holding up a hand, "you know that Potter felt exactly the same." His eyes glittered, and Hermione scowled at him, unable to argue. Tom's mouth twitched with amusement before he crouched to place the wand delicately against Percy's temple. "However," he went on, "I will admit that he took the Cruciatus very well, which I usually find to be a strong mark of character. _Legilimens_."

Hermione watched, fascinated, as thin silver tendrils of memory twisted up from beneath Percy's skin to swirl around the tip of the wand. After a minute or so Tom made a humming sound, and his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. "What?" Hermione said, bending forward as though she might be able to see more that way. "What is it?"

"Clever Weasley," Tom muttered, his smile turning grim. "Oh," he said, looking up and seeing the alarm on Hermione's face - "don't worry, he has no intention of betraying us. But he hasn't been entirely truthful, either."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her stomach clenching in sudden fear. "Did he lie about -"

Tom shook his head. "No, but he had a fail-safe in place," he said, frowning as he pushed the wand hard enough against Percy's forehead to turn the skin white around it. "If he didn't cast the counter-charm it - oh -" he said, nodding to himself "- this was well-hidden. I'm actually impressed."

"You are?" Hermione blinked, then shook her head. "Never mind that. Why -"

"He's a superb Occlumens," Tom observed, for all the world as though Hermione hadn't even spoken, before he finished the spell with a little twitch of his wand. "But fortunately I'm a better Legilimens."

"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about," Hermione ground out, "or am I going to have to test my own Legilimency skills against yours?"

Tom gave a disbelieving bark of laughter. "Don't tempt me," he muttered, snatching the wand out of the way when Hermione made a grab for it. "Ah-ah," he admonished as he caught her hand. "He had a series of charms in place that will have triggered an owl relay. Difficult for the Ministry to trace, so I would imagine Bill Weasley is learning you're still at large as we speak."

Hermione frowned in confusion. "Why wouldn't Percy tell us about that?"

Tom gave her a long look before raising a single eyebrow. "You really have to ask?"

"He wants them to know we're coming," Hermione sighed. "I guess if it was the other way round I wouldn't trust someone who was with - well…"

"Flattering," Tom remarked drily. "Assuming Bill and Andromeda are still together, which would be remarkably stupid of them and therefore is distinctly likely, and -" he raised his voice above Hermione's cry of protest "- assuming your traitor is with them as well, we should definitely get moving." He glanced quickly around the hotel room, with its contents of five Stupefied wizards, and grimaced slightly. "We've left quite a mess, and it won't be much longer before someone else comes to investigate."

"Give me a chance to get changed," Hermione told him, reaching for her beaded bag and rummaging inside it. Her fingers closed around the compass, and she pulled it out to throw to Tom, who caught it with a Seeker's reflexes. "You might as well check we're still heading in the right direction."

He gave her an unreadable look. "Why aren't you arguing with me?"

Hermione shrugged. "Why would I argue with you?"

"Oh, I don't know," Tom gestured at his still-bloodied shirt from where she had punched him earlier. "I wouldn't say that you've been overly appreciative of my ideas up until now."

She blushed fiercely, remembering how that fight had ended; the two of them on the floor, the feel of Tom's stomach clenching beneath her and the dark look in his eyes. "Well, this time you're right," she said lamely, straightening up as she found the pair of jeans that she had been looking for and the pouch containing her fresh underwear. Tom was still staring at her, and Hermione raised her chin in challenge. "Would you give me some privacy, please?"

He watched her with narrowed eyes for a moment more before he before he turned away with a rueful little laugh.

"Fine," she heard him sigh as she began to scramble out of her pyjamas. "Still south. Maybe a touch south west."

"Well then, where do you think we should try next?" she asked, pulling the t-shirt over her head and turning around to find Tom watching her. "Do you mind?"

He took a step forward, then another, backing her against the wall. "You know," he said quietly, "I haven't forgotten the conversation we had before."

"Which -" Hermione heard the quaver in her voice and swallowed tightly. "Which one?"

"You know which one," Tom replied. He lifted his hand and ran the backs of his knuckles down her cheek. Hermione felt strange - suddenly hot and yet shivery at the same time - far too aware of his touch against her skin, of the sound of her own pulse in her ears and the catch in Tom's breath when he bent his head slightly to one side. He inhaled, and it was only when she felt the shift of his abdomen that she realised how close they stood to one another. "Will you keep fighting me, muggle girl?" he murmured.

"Tom -" and somehow it didn't matter, at that moment, that his name, that everything about him, was a betrayal of all she had ever stood for "- I -"

There was a sudden hammering at the door, and Tom smiled without humour, dropping his hand to twine his fingers with hers.

"They have a remarkable sense of timing," he murmured. He raised the wand, and Hermione felt an uncomfortable jolt at the realisation that she hadn't even remembered he had it. "Trust me?" Tom asked her, and Hermione, barely able to think straight, cast a last look at Percy's insensible form.

"Yes," she whispered reluctantly, curling her fingers around his before she felt the yank of apparition, and the room swirled away from them.

 **oOo**

 _Now - 6th August 2002 - St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, London_

Percy was watching the sun set over Hyde Park when the second set of Aurors appeared. The first pair had spent more than two hours questioning him that morning, to the point where he didn't even have to feign the exhaustion that brought the Healer clucking to his side.

He could still feel the after-effects of the Cruciatus; those little involuntary muscle spasms, and the raw, scraped feeling of his throat where he had gasped for air.

He didn't recognise either of the Aurors when they came in, though he thought the dark-haired woman might have been the year below him at Hogwarts. The man beside her had a bland, forgettable face, but he wore the silver bars of a captain which told Percy he would need to be careful; an impression that was confirmed when the man folded his arms and leaned back against the door, allowing the woman to take the lead with the questioning.

"Mr Weasley," she greeted him pleasantly as she took a seat beside the bed. "My name is Auror Haneda, and this is Auror Fleet -" the man nodded curtly "- we'd like to ask you some more questions about the afternoon of 4th August."

Percy swallowed, his tongue feeling sticky and dry in his throat. "I'm very sorry, Auror - er -"

"Haneda, Mr Weasley." She gave him what Percy supposed was probably supposed to pass for a reassuring smile, but it fell somewhat flat.

"Auror Haneda," he repeated. "As I told your colleagues, I think I was Obliviated. I really don't know what else to say."

Haneda's brown eyes dipped to the piece of parchment in front of her, then she glanced over her shoulder towards Fleet, who uncrossed his arms. "Mr Weasley," he said. "I should not need to impress upon you the fact that if you do not tell the truth, you are likely to face severe consequences for your actions."

Percy was tempted to laugh. The message had been fairly plain when he'd woken up in a private room in the notoriously overcrowded St Mungo's. If he had been under the illusion that he had been kept off the main ward for his own comfort, the ropes binding his wand hand to the bed served as a strong clue that this was not the case.

"Why did you leave your desk to respond to the arrest warrant for Hermione Granger?" Haneda pressed.

"Because I know her," Percy said flatly. "I know how she thinks, and what she's capable of, and I thought I could help."

 _Tell the truth_ , he remembered his father saying to him. _Tell as much of the truth as you can, so they don't spot the lies_.

Haneda watched him for a long moment, her face almost expressionless, and Percy felt the creeping sensation of Legilimency before she sat back in her chair, shuffling her handful of parchments. "Very well. Did you have any chance to speak to Hermione Granger, or to the wizard who is travelling with her?"

Percy turned his head so he was looking her straight in the eye. "Not that I have any memory of."

"Are you able to confirm whether or not her companion is Theodore Nott?"

He didn't have to fake his grimace. "From the little I saw, I would say that it wasn't Nott she was with."

Haneda looked up, clearly surprised, though Percy had given the same answer earlier on. "What makes you say that?"

"I know Nott fairly well," Percy replied. "His Manor houses a substantial twelfth-century archive which the Records office has need of from time to time. Whoever Granger was with, it wasn't him."

"If it wasn't Theodore Nott, do you have any idea who it was?"

Percy gave himself a moment to consider his answer.

"I hadn't seen his face before," he said finally.

Haneda's eyes narrowed, and she glanced towards Fleet again, who motioned with one hand that she should continue.

"The Healers say that you showed signs of the Cruciatus curse," Haneda said. "Can you think of any reason that Hermione Granger might have had for wanting to torture you?"

This time Percy did laugh.

"None in particular, but I don't know why you're surprised. To her mind I'm sure that I'm the traitor," he answered bitterly.

"Right." Haneda nodded, her sympathy unconvincing. She consulted the notes in her hands yet again, her forehead creasing slightly as she read, before she looked up at Percy. "Is there any chance that the person accompanying Hermione Granger is Harry Potter?"

"What?" Percy spluttered. "Harry's dead isn't he - why would - how -?"

"Drop the act," Fleet growled, pushing himself away from the wall. "Our intelligence suggested that Granger was trying to find the Well of Souls, and there's only one reason that Potter-worshipping bitch would be going there." He smiled nastily, and Percy felt a cold weight settle in his abdomen. "So let's try it again," Fleet said. "Do you know who Granger was travelling with?"

Percy glared back at him. "No," he growled. "It wasn't anyone I knew."

"Are you sure?" Fleet demanded. He'd pulled out his wand, and was pointing it threateningly at Percy's throat. "You know the consequences if we find out that you've lied to us."

"I've told you everything," Percy said doggedly. "Use Legilimency, use the Cruciatus -"

"Use Veritaserum?" Fleet asked, and Percy gritted his teeth. He hadn't thought they had any stock, but apparently he'd been wrong.

"I have nothing to hide," he repeated, hoping he could bluff it out. "So why don't you just tell me what you want me to say and we can get this farce of an interrogation over with?"

"I think that's quite enough, don't you?"

Three pairs of eyes turned towards the door, and the small witch who had just stepped through it. She wasn't wearing a uniform of any sort, but Fleet dropped his wand and shuffled backwards, his head bowed in a show of deference. From his position on the bed Percy couldn't see the woman's face, but he knew that voice -

"Auror Fleet, Auror Haneda, why don't you go and talk to Mr Travers and see if you can get any more sense out of him?" She took another step into the room, her heels clicking gently against the tiled floor. "I'd like to have my own little chat with Mr Weasley."

The Aurors filed past her, and Pansy Parkinson came to sit beside the bed, smoothing her skirt over her knees. She smiled her little feline smile, and leaned back in the chair.

"I think we both know you don't want the Veritaserum, Percy," she remarked once the door had closed.

 **oOo**

 _Now - 6th August 2002, Pont-Saint-Esprit, France_

Tom had apparated them to Geneva, where they had avoided visiting the well-established wizarding quarter - both agreed that they would be unlikely to go unrecognised again after the fiasco in Amsterdam. Instead they had spent the remainder of the day sitting in the sunshine beside the lake, seemingly trying to pretend they had both forgotten their argument.

Hermione had watched Tom from the corner of her eye as he lay back with his eyes closed, apparently relaxed, though she could see the tension in him, and noticed that his hand remained resting on the pocket that held the wand.

 _Her_ wand, she could have pointed out, if she had felt like fighting him again. But she was still tired and it was so easy to forget, as they sat there surrounded by young families and laughing teenagers and pale-skinned tourists, that they were fighting for their lives.

After spending the night in a muggle hostel they had apparated onwards to Lyon, where Tom had surprised her by handing back the wand.

"We don't know how close we are," he had said when she frowned up at him. "So it would probably be best if you're the one holding this when we find them."

Unable to argue with his logic, Hermione had simply nodded. "I was thinking," she said slowly, picking at the omelette that they'd ordered in a small riverfront cafe. "It might be easier to find them if we do things the muggle way from here onwards."

Tom's lips had pursed tightly. "The muggle way?"

"I think we should hire a car," she had gone on. "That way we won't be -"

"It's a good idea," he'd sighed with obvious reluctance, shading his eyes to peer at her across the table. "They won't expect us to drive."

"That isn't why I -"

"I know," he'd smiled. "But you have to admit it's an advantage."

They'd got the bus to the airport and then hired a car using the emergency credit card that Hermione's parents had given her years ago. She'd had a moment's hesitation before doing so, then figured it was highly unlikely that wizards would try to track them using muggle means. Tom had stood to one side as she'd filled out the paperwork, looking irritatingly relaxed and handsome in a pair of dark sunglasses he had insisted on buying in town, and attracting glances from all the women and more than a few of the men who came into the company's small office.

Now, after a day's slow drive from small town to small town, Hermione could feel an odd sense of anticipation building, making her feel jittery and nervous. The needle of the compass was twitching infinitesimally every few minutes, which had to mean that they were getting close, and she was suddenly at a loss for quite how she was going to explain things to her friends.

"What if they're already dead?" she asked Tom, her hands tight on the wheel.

"Weasley would have heard," he said with perfect indifference, as he watched the rugged landscape of the Gard roll past the windows.

"But what if he didn't -"

"Are you going to keep asking me questions that I can't possibly give you an answer to?" He turned and looked at her, lifting the glasses so that she could feel the full force of his stare. When Hermione didn't answer he turned back to the car window. "We should stop here tonight," he said, surprising her.

"Why?" Hermione asked, wrinkling her nose and staring through the dusty windscreen at the unremarkable little town that rose out of the confluence of the Rhône and Ardêche rivers.

"Because you've been driving all day, we're both worn out, and we've no idea what sort of reception to expect," Tom said, counting off arguments on his long fingers. "I, for one, would prefer to have had a good night's sleep before facing Andromeda Black again."

Though Hermione hated to admit it, she could see his point.

"Fine," she sighed. "Would you prefer a hotel or breaking and entering?"

"I am not a petty criminal," Tom sniffed, leaning forward to peer up the street ahead of them. "That hotel looks perfectly adequate."

It was at least cheap, and when they got to the room it was clean and bright with the last of the evening sun, the voile curtains lifting in the light breeze blowing off the river.

"I'm going to have a shower," Hermione announced, ignoring both the large double bed and the way that Tom had flopped himself down on it in a manner she recognised as habitual. He waved a hand airily at her, not even bothering to open his eyes.

When she emerged back into the room, clean and refreshed in a way that charms could never quite manage, it was to find Tom asleep. Hermione paused by the side of the bed, astonished by how young he looked. The sunset sent deep pink light across his face, softening the angles of his cheeks, and for a moment she could almost have believed -

Tom's eyes flew open, and his hand caught her outstretched one before she could touch him. They stayed like that for a long moment, the air between them turning charged as they stared at one another. Outside the open window Hermione could hear the splash of the river; a child's laugh; a dog barking somewhere far away.

It almost felt as though they were not her fingers that unbuttoned his shirt; not his hands that left white impressions on her skin; not her teeth that bit down on the swell of muscle at his shoulder.

He held her beneath him, and he was so real - so real - and she could no longer deny it, and though neither of them said a word she could hear his voice -

 _You're here_ -

Could see his eyes, bright in the final rays of sunshine -

 _You came_ -

And she could taste the flavour of salt on his skin, of blood on his lips - and if it was wrong, if it was wrong then she did not care. She could not bear it any longer.

Hermione arched her back as he pressed himself into her, her eyes starting to flutter shut before Tom caught her chin.

"Look at me," he groaned, raw and urgent. "Look at _me_ , Hermione."

His breath was ragged, and she heard her own catch in her throat; half-sob, half-gasp.

"You're the only one who never looked away," he whispered, and she couldn't; knew that she would never, that she was lost to him, now and always.

"I won't," she heard herself say, as she stared up into the endless blue of his eyes. "I won't, Tom, I can't, I - _Tom_."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** my thanks to **Ibuzoo** , whose lovely moodboard inspired by this story can be seen on my tumblr, and reminded me that I should probably not leave you all hanging much longer, and to **Cocoartist** for editorial madskillz (seriously, girl had to wade through this one and she did it with good humour and aplomb and THAT'S all I have to say about THAT). _

_And also thanks to everyone else, as ever, for reading and following. Your reviews are a delight!_


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